Project VALUE DIFFERENCE

Transcription

1 Project VALUE DIFFERENCE 1. General description of the project: As it is recognized by the Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity (UNESCO, 2002), politics that foster inclusion and participation of all citizens ensure social cohesion, vitality of civil society and peace are fundamental. Cultural pluralism is the political answer to the reality of diversity. Inseparable from a democratic context, cultural pluralism allows the exchange and development of skills necessary to the public life. In fact, societies are ever more diverse. Portugal, as well as Europe, is constituted by people of multiple identities. The municipality of Valongo is no exception. It is then indispensable to ensure the peaceful and harmonious interaction between people and groups of people with plural and dynamic identities as well as their will to socialize. In this context, the Municipality of Valongo has created an integrated set of activities that challenge stereotypes in strategic populations, their involvement in the reception and valorisation of immigrant communities and their culture, especially in moments of great visibility. In fact, there is the knowledge that this process implies the introduction of subtle changes in social practice and interpersonal relations as well as in each individual s way of thinking. Therefore, Municipality of Valongo designed a project which has as its general goals: To promote and reinforce the communication between members of different cultures and intercultural dialogue in a way that allows the acquisition of knowledge and skills that allow populations to deal with a more complex environment; To raise awareness in populations of the importance of cultural diversity in national and European context; To deconstruct stereotypes that don t allow the proximity of people and cultures; To promote intercultural dialogue with the objective of promoting a citizenship open to the world, based in common values and that respects cultural diversity; To raise awareness regarding Human Rights; To allow and promote participation, namely, the social and civic participation of immigrant communities in the reception community. The specific goals of the Project are: To foster employment for at least 272 immigrants, by increasing their opportunities to be engaged in job and training opportunities; To create events that allow the exchange of experiences between cultures, with the participation of at least 10 partners, 35 immigrants and 600 people; To plan, implement and evaluate activities that contribute to deconstruct stereotypes and promote interculturality in at least 3 schools and that target at least 150 youngsters; To integrate the culture of immigrants in key moments of local life, comprehending at the least 100 immigrants. 1

2 CÂMARA MUNICIPAL DE VALONGO 2. Project activities: a) INTERCULTURALITY FESTIVAL: Specific objectives of the activity: To reinforce einforce the communication and intercultural dialogue between local and immigrant populations. populations To create reate a cultural and pedagogical event that gathers most of the immigrant communities that live in Valongo and allows them to show their cultural traditions. To contribute to the fight against xenophobia. To contribute to the process of networking among immigrants. Target audience: The main target audience are immigrants and reception community. We intended to create eate an event that gathers all residents in the municipality of Valongo. Valongo Interculturality Festival is a cultural event. During three days, the Ermesinde (one off the submunicipalities of Valongo) Valongo Urban Park was invaded by a mix of activities that represent world cultures. Arts and crafts, martial arts and world dances were some of the highlighted activities. Some of the activities were: Street animation (ex.: Dance of the Dragon, reutilization ateliers, intercultural stories corner, exhibitions, sports); Arts and crafts (exhibition exhibition of worldwide handicraft articles) Demonstrations and workshops (ex.: Taekwondo, Reiki, HipHop, Belly Dance, Latin, Latino Dance, Dance Indian Dance, Isis Wings, Capoeira ); Concerts by artists of several nationalities. nationalities 2

3 This activity required many human resources that were the true frame of the event. Some of the NGO s that participated were: Associação Mais Brasil (NGO Mais Brasil), Academia Tigre Branco (White Tiger Academy), Associação Cultural l "A cadeira de Van Gogh" (Cultural NGO Van Gogh s Chair), Associação Luso-Africana Pontos nos Is (Portuguese-African NGO Pontos nos Is), Essência Pura, Escola de Artes Marciais Chinesas SHE-SI (Martial Arts School SHE-SI). b) IMMIGRANT EMPLOYMENT SPACE Specific objectives of the service: To reinforce the job and training search at local level for immigrants; To raise awareness of the immigrant population about the needs of employers in terms of skills and training, that will promote a real integration on the labour market; To develop skills for active job seeking; To deconstruct stereotypes in employers about immigrants. Target audience: The immigrants and employers/entrepreneurs of the municipality are the target audience. At the same time awareness raising of the population to the importance of labour market integration of immigrants is fundamental. The Immigrant Employment Space is a service meant to promote immigrant s employment and training. Daily, job and training offers are sent (by or telephone) to immigrants. Immigrants are also directed to Portuguese language courses so that integration may be facilitated. The main services are: Collecting and divulging job/internship and training offers (collected from newspapers, Internet, contacts of the service, etc); Information, career guidance; Supporting employers and entrepreneurs in the recruitment and selection of human resources; Articulating with the national and local mechanism for employment; NGO s, schools, enterprises; Implementing job search conferences; Considering ing that this service already existed in the municipality but directed at a non-immigrant population, it became operational very quickly and effectively. The process of divulging it in several languages was, nevertheless, fundamental. 3

4 CÂMARA MUNICIPAL DE VALONGO This service was implemented with the partnership of the national mechanism for employment. employment c) LIVING LIBRARY Specific objectives of the activity: To create reate a space capable of a space capable of hosting the Living Library, allowing readers to have a safe place to ask challenging questions; To create reate a network of people, NGO s and governmental bodies that can cooperate in the identification of human books and dissemination of all stages of the project; Empowerment of local agents, in particular of those who are immigrants, through the involvement involvemen in all stages of the project; To create eate and promote partnership networks to promote a true institutional dialogue in the municipality concerning interculturality; To contribute to the empowerment of immigrant populations. Target audience: The target audience consisted of youngsters that are at school, school aged between 14 and 18. However, the whole school community was envisaged,, as well as their networks because they had to contact with it (at least in an indirect way, through observation or listening to stories about it). A Living Library is a physical space decorated like a normal library. In this project there is an element of itinerancy, as it visits the different schools hools of the municipality. Before the implementation of the activity a meeting with a teacher takes place; during this meeting the necessary steps to prepare the activity in each class are explained. Afterwards, each teacher debates with its class the goalss of the Living Library and prepares in advance some questions to present to the books; this ensures that the youngsters do not become blocked during the interaction with the human books. In the day the activity takes place at least 4 different human books are available to be read. There is a librarian who creates 4 sub-groups sub groups in each class, gives the instructions, makes sure the activity is evaluated, etc. Each group talks to the human book, book posing questions for about 20 minutes. When this period of time ends, nds, the groups exchange human books and restart reading it. This process continues until every group has been with all the books. Examples of stereotypes are: ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, disability, and, of course, multiple discrimination. The The goal is to deconstruct stereotypes based on the slogan: don t judge a book by its cover. Finally, the activity is evaluated and teachers integrate it during classes. 4

5 CÂMARA MUNICIPAL DE VALONGO This work is done in cooperation with wit several NGO s: NGO Pontos nos Is (area of intervention: immigration), immigration) NGO Amizade de Leste (area of intervention: immigration), NGO ACAPO (area of intervention: disability), NGO Rede Ex aequo (area of intervention: sexual orientation), and schools of the municipality. municipality d) JOB FAIR Specific objectives of the activity: To reinforce inforce the job offer and local job search with the immigrant population; To raise aise awareness of immigrants to the real needs of employers and entrepreneurs concerning skills and the knowledge needed for them to become integrated in the local job market.; To develop job seeking skills and entrepreneurship; To deconstruct econstruct stereotypes in employers about immigrant populations. Target audience: nts and employers of the municipality. municipalit At the same time, the population in general are also targeted ta The Immigrants with the goal of raising awareness to the importance of a steady employment contract in the integration process of the immigrant populations. A Job fair is an excellent opportunity to bring close together the job offers and job needs.. It lasted 4 days. Several kinds of institutions were invited to participate: Secondary schools (because because they have courses that target adults and young adults); Trainning centers; Universities; Private Companies of the municipality; municipality Temporary work, selection and recruitment companies; companies National Mechanism for Employment. At the same time several activities of animation were planned: planned Street animation (ex.: small shows of skills developed during training courses such as hairdresser, arts, sciences, sciences etc); 5

6 Shows and Workshops (Microcredit, Entrepreneurship, Job searching skills, etc); Seminars (with experts in the training and employment areas); This activity required complex logistics and the mobilization of many human resources. It also included the creation of partnerships with the municipality s NGO s so that immigrants could participate as well as the phone contact with the ones that are in contact with our services. Another way to divulge the activity was the creation of leaflets in other languages and its distribution through the main institutions and health services of the region. The partnership with the national mechanism of employment, training institutions, schools and enterprises was fundamental to the success of the activity. e) PARTICIPATION IN EXPOVAL Specific goals: To reinforce the communication and intercultural dialogue between the immigrant and the reception population. To create a cultural and pedagogical event that allows us to bring together the culture of the main communities that live in the municipality and thus to value them. To contribute to the deconstruction of stereotypes regarding the reception and immigrant communities. To contribute te to the empowerment and creation of networks of immigrants. Target Audience: The main target audience are immigrants and the reception community. We wanted that interculturality mainstreaming was applied and that the event created the possibility that all inhabitants contact with world music and activities. EXPOVAL is a fair of products and services of the municipality. In the 8th edition there were show cooking opportunities, arts and crafts, cultural activities: dance, music, radical activities. There was also leisure area with giant inflatables for children, painting ateliers, and many, many other activities. The free access to the fair and to all activities is an important moment of conviviality of populations. In this edition of EXPOVAL we also included cultural moments dedicated to immigrants, giving them all the importance they deserve: dance, music, martial arts, arts and crafts were some of the highlighted aspects. Immigrants NGO s (NGO Amizade de Leste and NGO Luso-Africana Pontos nos Is). 6

7 3. Geographical area of the project The municipality of Valongo is the area where the Project was developed. The national mechanism in charge of immigration and intercultural dialogue decided to promote the decentralization of intervention policies and we were one of the municipalities chosen to do it. All 5 submunicipalities were considered in the Project. The work method was non-formal education (planned educational and social activities that promote several skills usually not covered by formal education in people that usually do not have time or opportunity to contact with them). This methodology was selected according to the potential of producing change. 4. Evaluation The project evaluation was continuous and performed in a quantitative and qualitative way. The indicators are specific for each activity and were referred in the application form; however in a general way, it is possible to say that the indicators are: Quantitative evaluation: 1. Reckoning of the number of people involved in each activity and the end of the activity; 2. Reckoning of the number of actions done by our initiative and by initiative of the partner network. Qualitative evaluation: 1. Gathering and analysis of media coverage during the life cycle of the project; 2. Analysis of qualitative anonymous questionnaires of people that participate in activities and human resources of the project. 5. Agência para a Vida Local All activities of the Project are initiatives of the Local Centre of Support and Integration to Immigrants of Valongo which is a service of the Agência para a Vida Local (Agency for Local Life). Agency for Local Life is a service of the Municipality of Valongo, characterized by its innovation. Its main concern is the facilitation of the life of men and women in a short or long term. Targeting this goal in a short term makes available several free services that area local information and solutions at a professional, personal and family level. Targeting this goal on a long term we develop initiatives that promote human rights, Equality and active inclusive citizenship. 7

8 Services of Agency for Local Life: All services are free of charge. This is service that informs inhabitants about the existing resources of the municipality contributing to the reconciliation of professional, personal and private life. Also develops non-formal education actions to promote human rights, equality and citizenship. An initiative that promotes facilitates the everyday life of inhabitants, promoting their active participation in the life of the community by exchanging time. Its mission is the support, reception and integration of immigrants at a local level. It s a space of information and decentralized support that answers questions and helps to solve problems of immigrants. Its mission is to promote the training, qualification and employment of local population as well as the reconciliation of all areas of life. Also supports employers that are looking for human resources that suit their needs. Gives a 5 hour weekly credit to educators of children aged between 2 and 7 years old when they don t have anyone to leave them with. During this period, they can perform educational activities that promote human rights, equality and interculturality. Place of public access to Internet that wants to promote information and communication technologies especially on those who are not in touch with this area. 8

9 Service that fights the violence against women in the context of intimate relationships and it s dependents. Service that trains and informs people about their rights and duties regarding consumers information as well as help them in the resolution of its problems in this area. Contacts: Agência para a Vida Local Rua Fábrica da Cerâmica, s/n.º Ermesinde Telefax: avl@cm-valongo.pt 9