Routes - Migration and integration in Europe

Migration is nowadays a common demographic trend which all European Union members countries are facing. European Union countries are one of the main destination for immigration coming from extra-European countries and an enlarged Europe means an ever increasing number of people moving from one state to another.

However, immigration is an old phenomenon. Countries and populations which are today the destination for migrants, have a history of being migrants themselves and often have experienced the situations of trying to integrate and achieve equal rights and opportunities.

Today, the education system is facing the challenge of dealing with multicultural classes (e.g. in some areas of Italy the non Italian pupils make up 50% of the total). Therefore schools need methods and tools to educate native pupils to accept newcomers as a resource and not as a problem, and to facilitate the integration of young immigrants starting from early ages overcoming communication and cultural obstacles. Schools should involve the students in a common reflection on how the history of Europe is also the history of immigrants that have been a benefit for the economies of their new countries and how European identity is based on the spreading of rights to all and on the understanding of other cultures.

The project aims to open a common reflection at European level on the theme of migration and integration, experimenting an innovative method of studying the evolutions of migration throughout the XX century, based on valorising the potential for exchanging and sharing information of new technologies, for recovering, by means of direct sources and interviews, the historic memory of the countries who have seen both the arrival of migrants and the departure of immigrants in their past.

Re-tracing the history of migratory flows in Europe, recovering the point of view of both those who left a country and also those who saw the arrival of new people from other countries, will help European students and teachers understand current immigration related issues better and start a wider reflection on the theme of the citizenship and extension of rights.

Specific objectives are:

• Develop highly interactive and communicative e-learning contents addressed to Secondary schools which experiment difficulties in dealing with multicultural classes, in order to enhance the capacity of teachers and pupils to view diversity as a resource to learn about different cultures and habits
• Provide schools with highly interactive and attractive ICT based educational tools to be used in multicultural classes experimenting integration difficulties, to foster dialogue and mutual understanding between pupils with different ethnic backgrounds starting from the knowledge and comprehension of the past experiences of immigrants integration.
• Provide European students with a better comprehension of how immigration has been and will therefore be a resource for the European economy and will facilitate a full integration of the different ethnic groups, based on mutual respect and understanding.

The following activities will be carried out:

• Research on Migration phenomenon - Teachers and experts will carry out an historical research to understand the migration phenomenon through:

  - The review of Legislation Acts and Publications related to emigration

  - The collection of Interviews with eye witnesses as emigrants, immigrants and natives in contact with immigrants

  - The collection of Case studies of integration of immigrants process

  Emigration countries (Italy, Romania, Slovakia) will concentrate on the recovery of the memory of emigrants and their families who stayed behind (i.e. the initial impact of the new reality on emigrating individuals, the integration process etc.)
  Host countries (Italy, Belgium, Germany, France, United Kingdom) will focus its attention on the national population (i.e. the social role perceived of immigrants and he economic needs they answered etc.)
• Creation of Reports on history of Immigration. Each partner will provide a National analysis of the History of immigration and the contribution given to the economic and social development of their country.

  - Hosting countries will focus on the integration of the immigrants from the hosting citizenship point of view and the contribution had by immigration to the national economy

  - Emigration countries will focus on the integration of the immigrants from their point of view and on how the emigrants contributed to the national economy (i.e. loss of qualified workers vs. revenues transferred to family left behind)

• Creation of an On-line Course focusing on the understanding of the process of integration of immigrants in order to teach teachers the Best practices in the field.
• Creation of interactive practical activities to be used by the teachers to exploit the materials developed during the project and accessible through the Routes Portal
• Testing and evaluation of the Portal contents - In each country a pilot group of teachers, duly assisted by the experts, will test the Routes Portal contents, in order to evaluate their quality and effectiveness.

The main short term target groups are:

• Secondary school teachers and students, are facing a critical challenge connected to the necessity to deal with multicultural classes. The immigration trend is leading to classes composed by many different ethnic groups that demand that both, teachers and pupils, possess the capacity to build up a new approach to perceive immigration, through the mutual understanding and respect of different cultures, as a resource and an opportunity and not only as problem.
• Immigrant students. They will develop the awareness of belonging to a historical phenomenon which is not new in Europe and to gain experience and information from the past in order to avoid the errors made (dealing with the communication problems, closure into cultural ghettos etc.) and repeat the successful attitudes (e.g. learn the language, open up to the new culture etc.).
• European citizens. Immigration is often perceived by the majority of citizens as a source of social problems, due to its impact on the local communities. Misleading information tend to represent immigrants as responsible for petty crimes and lack of job offers, causing their social marginalisation that eventually multiply the difficulties. There is a need of promoting among citizens a more in depth understanding of the phenomenon showing how a successful integration of immigrants is historically related to a development of national economies.