25
Ongoing projects
Digital Welcome
period: October 2017-June 2019 source of funding: Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund- European Commission coordinator: ALL DIGITAL website: http:// digitalwelcome. eu
In October 2017 ALL DIGITAL started a new exciting project called“ The WELCOME Programme”. We will work with newcomers – asylum seekers and refugees, through creative IT workshops which are designed to unlock their potential and foster their inclusion in European countries. The partners in the project are five ALL DIGITAL network members from Belgium, Germany, Italy, and Spain, plus the Greek organisation IASIS, which has a number of centres for psychological support and education for asylum seekers and refugees in Athens( in Greek, IASIS means“ recovery, health restoration”).
The project kick-off meeting took place in Brussels on 10- 11th October. The project full title is“ The WELCOME Programme”, because we will develop and pilot an innovative training programme consisting of creative IT modules. In this training, we will train young newcomers as IT mentors. They will then work as volunteers and organise IT workshops for their peers and for local people. Thus, they will share their skills and show their potential to serve the community, volunteering not in the usual activities such as cooking or cleaning, but as IT mentors, which requires higher technical skills.
As part of the programme, the young mentors will produce digital stories to reflect on the programme experience.
They will share them with their peers to motivate them to volunteer or participate in educational, social and cultural activities, as well as to raise awareness of the need to make activities more inclusive for third country nationals.
We will test the programme twice during the project and update it after each round. The final programme will take into account the lessons learned, and we hope that many organisations who want to work with refugees and asylum seekers will use it. Updates are being shared on social media # digitalwelcome and the project website digitalwelcome. eu( coming soon!). Why“ digital welcome”? Because the digital component is our added value and contribution to the integration landscape and what distinguishes our approach from other initiatives on welcoming newcomers.