Newsletter 1
Preventing and Combating Racism and Xenophobia through Social Orientation of Non-Nationals
Newsletter 3
RACCOMBAT project concluded
Newsletter 3
Welcome to the third and final issue of the RACCOMBAT “Preventing and Combating Racism and Xenophobia through Social Orientation of Non-Nationals” project newsletter. The newsletter aims to disseminate information to integration service providers; migration and integration stakeholders and policy makers; host societies and non-nationals.
The RACCOMBAT project aimed to promote a conceptual framework for introducing tolerance and non-discrimination topics throughout the integration path of non-nationals. To this end, it identified best practices in combating racism, xenophobia and other forms of intolerance by promoting the laws, customs and values of society, as well as knowledge about relevant institutions and intercommunal activities throughout the entire process of induction, adaptation and ultimate integration of migrants.
The RACCOMBAT project
It was implemented over 22 months, in cooperation between 6 EU Member States, and was co-funded by the European Commission’s Rights, Equality and Citizenship program. The added value of our project consists in:
- Identifying tools and practices to foster understanding between host and non-national communities;
- Exchanging promising experiences to build the capacity of service providers to offer human rights–oriented and host society–inclusive integration modules to migrants and other non-nationals;
- Stimulating a holistic approach towards integration and underscoring the importance of language tuition and social orientation;
- Raising the quality of public debate and strengthening the human rights approach in accepting and integrating, rather than stigmatizing, newcomers.
Incorporating tolerance and mutual respect in language tuition and social orientation of refugees and migrants
The RACCOMBAT initiative culminated in the drafting of guidelines on incorporating inter communal tolerance and mutual respect in the language and social orientation process of non-nationals, aiming at empowering and educating newly arrived or relatively settled non-nationals.
The guidelines are targeted at governmental and non-governmental integration service providers, stakeholders and policy makers in the area of migration and integration, such as national, regional and local authorities responsible for migration and host societies and non-nationals in general.
They constitute a practical interdisciplinary capacity building tool, which imparts practical knowledge on integrating a fundamental rights approach in a number of contexts:
• in the work of institutions and NGOs, under different models throughout the European Union
• as part of a crisis response
• in well established integration pathways
• in language tuition and cultural orientation programs
• in the everyday work of asylum, law enforcement, judiciary and equality bodies.
Policy level conclusions and recommendations
The guidelines include recommendations on bringing the importance of fundamental rights in social orientation to the policy level.
• should we entrust all integration functions with the state, procure certain activities to service providers, or stay with NGO pioneered models?
• how can a fundamental rights approach be integrated as part of a crisis response?
• how can a fundamental rights approach be structurally integrated in education”
• how can fundamental rights knowledge be built in language tuition and cultural orientation programs
• how can tolerance and mutual respect be taught as part of the everyday work and outreach of institutions towards non-nationals
Read more here.
International Conference in Sofia
With the aim to present the results of the project and generate meaningful dialogue on migration and integration, an international conference was held on May 15th, 2019, in Sofia, Bulgaria. The conference brought together representatives of social services, the Employment Agency, the State Agency for Refugees, with the Council of Ministers, law enforcement authorities, integration agencies and NGO service providers from Bulgaria, Romania, Belgium, Austria, Greece and Latvia.
You are welcome to view the conference interventions here.
6 national training workshops
One day training events were held in Sofia, Athens, Antwerp, Vienna, Riga and Bucharest, with the aim to train stakeholders from all relevant professional groups on the guidelines, accompanied by presentation of the identified best practices, and to enable them to act as multipliers in their communities,
This newsletter was funded by the European’s Union Rights, Equality and Citizenship project (2014-2020). The content of this newsletter represents the views of the author only and is his/her sole responsibility. The European Commission does not accept any responsibility for use that may be made of the information it contains.
