Communication Skills for Integration of Migrants

WelComm in short...

The  WelComm  project  aims  at  raising  awareness  of  the  importance  of  education  for  social  inclusion  of  migrants from early age and promoting opportunities for equal start in education. Migrant children often grow up in households only hearing and speaking the native language of their parents and they are challenged by their language skills upon school entry. Early education can address school readiness and language acquisition, enabling  children  to  enter  kindergarten  with more  advanced language skills and at the same time facilitate integration for immigrant families into the host society. 

The WelComm project will address those issues by developing a Multimedia Learning Kit for Migrant Children creating basic communication skills in the host country language.  The Kit will include fully animated films, games and comics where all themes are presented as learning activities with personal involvement of learners.

WelComm Kick-­‐off Meeting…

The project partners were welcomed by the project coordinator, Pressure Line, on 17-­‐18 November 2014 in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, to get the project started. The meeting was focused on pinpointing the short-­‐term tasks and responsibilities and developing an approach towards involving relevant organisations and individuals in the project activities. The first project stage foresees the following tasks:

  • Creating focus groups with representatives of migrant organisations, language providers, voluntary organisations, etc.
  • Performing a needs analysis among migrants and language educators related to cultural and language information for development of basic communication skills.
  • Selecting good practices focused on approaches for social integration of migrants.
  • Developing informational brochures with cultural specifics of the partner countries as motivation boosters for migrant parents.
  • Developing a didactic approach for development of basic speaking / comprehension skills of migrant children.
  • Developing a concept for language learning materials and guidelines for language educators to use them with learners.

Current Tasks

The partners are already working on gathering information on migrants’ needs, cultural specifics of the six target countries and good practices for integration of migrants through language skills. The project will cover Bulgaria, Cyprus, Italy, Portugal, Spain and The Netherlands and will offer opportunities for social inclusion of migrants from different cultural backgrounds in the societies of those countries.

What’s next… 

The second project meeting will take place on 5-­‐6 February 2015 in Siena, Italy where the partners will discuss the results of the performed needs analysis and selection of good practices and will lay grounds for the development of the methodological framework of the WelComm products.

Project partners 

Pressure Line (NL) – coordinator EURORESO 

KU TU Ltd. (BG) 

Synthesis (CY), IFES (ES) UNISTRASI (IT) 

Inthecity Project Development (NL) F.L.E.P. (PT) 

 

For more information on the project, please visit welcomm‐project.com.