JEM partners

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Intercambio Ltd

Intercambio is based in Sheffield in South Yorkshire within the UK - a region facing disadvantage in the labour market. It was set up in 1996 and works with a variety of EU and non-EU adult learners who are participants in a variety of UK VET based learning programmes, including short courses and English language courses. Intercambio works in partnership with a diverse range of higher, further and vocational education institutions to provide support and development to adult learners who make the UK a temporary home. Intercambio provides a range of support programmes to aid learners in finding and applying for courses and provide them with help and assistance during their stay in the UK.

29% of individuals in Sheffield are unemployed, compared to figures of 25.8% in England generally. In addition, the Sheffield City region is behind other regions in the UK in terms of skills and qualifications as just over 24% of Sheffield region inhabitants have qualifications of NVQ 4 or above compared to the England average figure of over 28%. Recent figures show that 11% of the community of Sheffield was born outside the UK, compared to a Yorkshire and Humber average of 8%. The ethnic minority population is now 19.2% of Sheffield’s total population. 109,500 people in Sheffield are from ethnic minorities, more than double the 55,200 in 2001. These issues mean that it is becoming more important to provide targeted support to migrants within the area in order to prevent migrants from becoming excluded from the labour market.

http://www.intercambiouk.com/

Greta du Velay - Pedagogical laboratory

The Greta du Velay is a public training organisation gathering 21 educational institutions under the wing of the Ministry of Education. Certified ISO 9001, it exists since 1975 and currently employs 4 training advisers and 40 trainers. Half of the activity consists in supporting disadvantaged groups towards social and professional inclusion, mainly unemployed, migrants and persons with disabilities. The other half consists in supporting small and medium organisations in their learning processes. This includes the detection of training needs, delivery of training, evaluation and follow up. It provides courses in various areas: hospitality, care, languages, French as a foreign language. The Greta is actively involved in encouraging the participation of migrants in French society. It provides language courses. It has produced strategies, reference and training material (http://afip.dedi.velay.greta.fr, http://citim.velay.greta.fr), organised conferences ("Intercultural dialogue", "Migrants and IT"), videos and debates ("From management to migration").

French policies clearly state that the first criteria and the main proof of integration is through work in the host country: being employed or self-employed. A condition for being properly employed is speaking the language. All the corpus related to what was called “French as a Foreign language” (FLE) has been changed to “French as the integration language” (FLI). This change affects the whole process, from the right of migrants to access training, to the payment of training, the certification of training organisations and the master degree needed for teachers. The Greta was one of the first training centres to be certified in Auvergne. So there is a need to organise converging actions facilitating the employment of migrants and their personal evolution within companies.

http://cri.velay.greta.fr

Unión de profesionales y trabajadores autónomos

The Union of Self-Employed Professionals and Workers of Spain (UPTA) is a nationwide organisation with presence throughout the country addressed to represent the interests and rights of self-employed workers in different economic sectors. UPTA provides services to its members, including training for improving professional qualifications and supports people who wish to access self-employment, providing information and training. UPTA pays special attention to the most disadvantaged target groups and promotes initiatives to improve their professional and working conditions, encouraging self-employment in the social sector. UPTA has developed several national programmes providing advisory and consultancy for immigrant people willing to become entrepreneurs and has technical expertise in this field.

Spain has been a country receiving migrants from third countries and also from other EU eastern countries. When migrants arrive to the country in most cases they do not have a labour contract and are faced with  a lot of barriers to accessing the labour market so they need the help and support of social institutions working to help immigrants. Since labour opportunities are limited many of them are willing to work on their own and start a new business mainly in the commerce and service sector, offering products and services to their compatriots. Offering support to the immigrants during this process is the best way to achieve their effective social inclusion in the host country and at the same time to boost the national economy. Due to the crisis business creation rates are decreasing but immigrant people continue opening new businesses, supporting the economy and commercial life of some neighbourhoods and even entire towns. Moreover, every day more and more Spanish people are moving to another EU country looking for a job and becoming immigrants in the host country. UPTA is willing to be able to provide advice and support to those Spanish people who are going abroad and the present project would be a perfect opportunity for that.

http://www.upta.es