RefugeesCode: Acceleration of labour market integration of third country nationals through digital competencies

The two main needs that we wanted to address with this project were the Demand for digital skills in the EU and the social inclusion of refugees, migrants and asylum seekers. During our research phase, we found that more than a third of the European labour force lacks basic digital skills and digital skills gaps are emerging (Digital Economy and Society Index, 2020) and that 80% of companies in Southern and Eastern Europe found difficulties to source valid candidates for their ICT positions (DSJC, 2020). On the other issue, youth unemployment in Europe is at almost 20% and Greece, Spain and Belgium are counted among the 5 European countries with the highest unemployment for non-EU-born people, with 29.0%, 19.9% and 13.8% respectively (Eurostat, 2019). Tackling these common needs with the expertise of the created consortium for this project, our approach was to establish a fully-functioning Tech Academy in Madrid to target these needs at a local level.

(1) Support refugees, migrants and asylum seekers (RMAS) in Europe in acquiring and developing digital skills and key employability competences for the digital sector: Transfer knowledge and good practices to establish a fully-running tech academy for RMAS in Madrid; Develop and improve existing tech academies within the partner organisations by sharing experiences and best practices & conducting qualitative research on how to improve partnerships with the private sector; Develop a network of organisations working towards labour inclusion for RMAS within the tech sector. (2) Accelerate labour market integration of RMAS in Europe: Conduct qualitative research on how to develop impactful partnerships with the private sector, especially directed towards beneficiaries employability; Disseminate the results of the research conducted and contribute to developing other employability projects within and beyond this project; Share experiences and best practices for teachers and youth workers to implement training on soft skills and employability in tech academies for RMAS; Foster socio-educational and personal development, as well as participation in civic and social life of RMAS at a European level.

The activities that we implemented during our project were: Activity 1: Coaching programme for Madrid for Refugees: During this 40 day period, Madrid for Refugees received personal and intensive support from OCC Spain in developing a solid base for the implementation of our tech academy in Madrid. With support of two experienced professionals from OCC Spain, Madrid for Refugees has received training in order to: - Learn new tools and project management methodologies to effectively run the academy - Further develop their current technical curriculum - Support our students in the most broad-possible way (to offer legal, psychological and other forms of support) - Create a larger volunteer community of tech and employability volunteers - Increase our social media presence and visibility - Extend our partner network, both in non-profit and the profit sector - Receive best practices in running a complete tech academy, on the short and long term Activity 2: How to run a non-profit tech academy: an exchange of best practices This training was based on sharing knowledge and best practices on the following aspects of the management of tech academies and other digital skills educational programmes for migrants and refugees: - The role of a Head of Education - The role of employability skills training - The curriculum and how to improve it - Management of extensive volunteer communities - Keeping the community of students, volunteers and partners alive - Useful management tools - Involvement of ESC Volunteers in the academy - Organising Online Job Fairs - Further involvement of other EU and Erasmus+ project opportunities Activity 3: How to offer more than education: the importance of additional services to beneficiaries This training was based on the activities that are carried out in MigraCode Barcelona, where students can benefit from free psychological, legal, gender, technical and language support. In this activity partners were encouraged to bring their (1) knowledge and experience on offering additional support to their beneficiaries, or (2) needs to help their beneficiaries. Best practices on offering additional support and knowledge were shared and discussed by all partners. Suggestions for improvement and/or further implementations were be given, which will lead to concrete plans. Activity 4: Presentation of research results on “How to develop impactful partnerships with the private sector” During this online activity, the results of our qualitative research for developing and improving partnerships with the private sector were presented, which was followed by a brainstorming workshop on how to improve and update our respective techniques on developing impactful partnerships with the private sector. All 5 partner organisations participated in this activity, conducting local qualitative research by interviewing potential private organisation partners in the digital sector or with digital needs.

The results and outputs expected at the beginning of the project that we have achieved were: (1) Successful implementation of Madrid For Refugees pilot course on software development for Refugees, Migrants and Asylum Seekers (RMAS) tailored to the needs of the Spanish market, involving 769 working hours on HTML, CSS, Javascript & Vue.js. 31 volunteers participated in this pilot course, covering teaching, mentoring, coordination, and partnerships. 17 RMAS students enrolled and we completed the course with a graduation rate of 53%. The graduated and also non-graduated advanced students have also participated in workshops to improve employability prospects and were supported by our team in their job searches. (2) We generated and released six pieces of documentation for knowledge-sharing purposes, as well as a course syllabus for the pilot, four project impact reports, and additional dissemination materials (attached). (3) We facilitated a total of 30 knowledge-sharing and best practices sessions and discussions throughout the project within 2 transnational meetings and 4 international activities, engaging the full consortium of five organizations in all sessions. (4) The relationship between the consortium partners was established and reinforced throughout the project, leading to initial steps of the creation of a strong consortium to not only participate in joint projects, but to keep facilitating knowledge-sharing, experiences and learnings, cross-collaboration, implementation of common tools and metrics for impact and shared resources. (5) We fostered 12 partnerships with non-profit and private sector organizations within the Madrid RMAS and Digital ecosystems. One of those partnerships with the private sector has covered the coordination costs for the course pilot. All project goals were achieved.