Digital Welcome
Status
ongoingCity
Brussels Capital Region
Main actors
City Government, Private Sector, NGO / Philanthropy, Public Utility
Project area
other
Duration
Ongoing since 2016
An ICT and technology skills training programme to improve migrant and refugee integration.
Digital Welcome’s focus on creative methodology for digital inclusion and digital empowerment is a strategy to equip young refugees and migrants with the necessary skills to fully participate in the host society, including digital skills, but also pedagogical and soft skills to make connections with local people, volunteer, run workshops and to seek employment.
IT organisations from cities in Belgium, Greece, Germany, Spain and Italy are administering the programme with support from local governments, NGO’s, educational institutions, non-profit organisations, public agencies and the private sector.
This case study was contributed from the Digital Skills Map: https://digiskillsmap.com/en
The initial idea for a Programme for IT courses for migrants and refugees was born within the ALL DIGITAL (then Telecentre-Europe) network during the Telecentre Europe General Assembly in Amsterdam in 2016 and was endorsed by many members. The working title of the programme was “WELCOME”.
The aim of the project “WELCOME Programme” is to exchange best practices between organisations specialised in digital inclusion of disadvantaged groups and, based on this exchange, to develop and pilot an innovative methodology for social inclusion of third country nationals in educational and social activities, cultural life, volunteering and digital creation activities.
The Digital Welcome training course provides an excellent opportunity to practice the local language, improve digital skills and meet new people.
The training is 60 hours and includes 4 modules:
- Introduction to coding
- Digital storytelling
- Digital journalism
- Soft skills and communication
At the end of each of the modules and stages of the training, the participants evaluate the outputs they have achieved.
Participants also learn how to present workshops on those topics. At the end of the training course, they organise and conduct IT workshops for other migrants and refugees, local residents or both.
The programme was developed by expert trainers and is based on 50+ good practices, collected and analysed in the design stage. It was updated twice during the project and updated again based on the lessons learned.
The programme and know-how is being made available to anyone working for the integration of migrants, refugees and asylum seekers.
Financing
EU Asylum, migration and integration fund
Funding call: AMIF-2016-AG-INTE-01 “Integration of 3rd country nationals”
Co-operation partners
All Digital (Belgium), Media Actie Kuregem Stad (Belgium), IASIS (Greece),
Stiftung Digitale Chancen (Germany), Fondazion Mondo Digitale (Italy), Centro Studi Citta di Foligno Associazione (Italy), Colectic (Spain).
Stakeholders
Other organisations involved in the recruitment of participants were reception centres, Red Cross. Sint Guido Institute Anderlecht, adult education centres and others.
- The training has been implemented in 5 counties (6 cities) by 12 trainers (2x country).
- 120 young 3rd country nationals have been trained and produced 120 digital stories.
- More than 720 hours of training have been provided
- Young 3rd country nationals organised and presented more than 20 workshops.
The feedback from both trainers, training participants and the workshop participants has been very positive.
An interesting point to highlight is that the program helps participants to learn the local language but, at the same time, not having a basic knowledge of the language is a barrier. It is a challenge for both participants and trainers during the training and also during the process of mentoring. It is recommended that participants have an intermediate level in the local language and/or that the training is complemented by language courses.
The training is neither long, nor short. A challenge is the non-formal format. It is not easy to retain participants in the classroom for a long time unless they are institutionalized, since their daily reality is very dynamic. It often happens that they find work, start going to mandatory integration classes, begin internship periods, etc. Drop-out rate is significant.
The modularity, flexibility and ease of adaptation of the program to the different national contexts was seen as a great advantage.
The group work and the peer-to-peer concept, which are at the core of the methodology, also have great value and are key to responding to the challenges related to the different technological and linguistic competence of the participants.
Participants ask repeatedly for the direct impact of training on their job opportunities, the value that the certification will have, etc. and only if they visualize the training as an opportunity, they continue to be involved. In a complementary way, the construction of new relationships of friendship and the relationship with the trainer is also a positive element that helps to complete the program and visualize its benefits.
Finally, as part of the integration process, the programme is very interesting, both for competency-based learning and interaction with the host society and work with mixed groups.
Digital Welcome: https://digitalwelcome.eu/
Digital Skills Map: https://digiskillsmap.com/en/projects/digital-welcome
External links / documents
Want to know more about this project?
Berlin, Germany
Digital Skills Map
Institution | Local know-how on digitalisation in vocational education and training