Integration Without Borders

About This Project

Project background

Integration without Borders is a project which is being established within the context of a Europe which claims to value diversity, but suffers from the pressures of minorities with a long history of isolation, as well as the recent incorporation of large numbers of migrants within a context of economic and social depression. The entire rationale of the project relates to how this inclusion can be made possible and how professionals could be best suited to help it through.

Project goals

This project aims to develop a strategic partnership in the fields of Social Education and Social Work with the following objectives, complementing work already implemented or work in progress in the following ways:

1. The creation of a manageable network of partners for intensive co-operation from 8 different countries and from complementary backgrounds (Universities, research centres, associations, NGOs, professional bodies, local authorities etc.), in order to promote an exchange of experiences and sharing of know-how with the aim of attaining higher levels of teaching and learning experience with the creation of a new curriculum. The focal point is the integration of cultural and ethnic minorities thanks to the following of their needs from grass-roots social works. This goal will establish by identifying the key competencies related with need of the project target group and set up the training program to improve those competencies among young social workers. It is therefore also different from and complementary to the work of Imiscoe (International Migration and Social Cohesion in Europe), which is well known to the participants but which focuses almost exclusively on research.

2. Integration and further training for new professionals in the field of social work and social education will also be different from and complementary to what has been done in the project “Tuning in social work” in the years 2004 and 2005 a work which has been followed by the President of EDIW (one of the project partner) , the same as the work on the “Qualifications framework project” that she coordinated. The innovative work in this project is that it develops two sets of specific competences, for which there is an urgent requirement at the present moment:  intercultural understanding and management of diversity, project development and social entrepreneurship. These specific competencies will improve their service to society in the field of social work in social inclusion of ethic group and migrants in Europa and also improve the social workers employability. It also will be innovative in terms of the ways in which universities could recognize these competences.

3. The sharing of good practices and the systematization of learning in this project is quite well focused, since it relates to practices that have been implemented in social projects from the different partner countries, as well as the specific skills required in the field of social integration (social, economic, political, ethical..) of ethnic minorities in the different member states involved, and the possible impact on the measures to be taken at different levels of institutions (Universities, associations and NGOs, local and transnational authorities).

Project Resume

The IWB project includes the following activities:

• First transnational coordinators meeting for determining of the project’s needs in Olomouc, Czech Republic
• Collection of good practices from all partner organizations within the competences of the project: Intercultural Understanding, Management of Diversities, Social Entrepreneurship and Project Management
• Presentation of the good practices
• Training course on the first two competences of the project, in Satu Mare, Romania
• Dissemination of the activities and conclusions from the first training course
• Second transnational coordinators conference for discussion of the first training course and crafting the second training course within the project
• Training course for the second pair of competences in Madrid, Spain
• Dissemination of the activities and conclusions from the second training course
• Third transnational coordinators conference for conclusions and preparation of a manual for social workers in Europe which will include the good practices and activities from both training courses
• Printing of a manual for social workers
• Dissemination of manual