National seminar “Självbiografisk metod för migranter och minoriteter”
The seminar aimed to promote the project and first three intellectual outputs in Sweden, having the following objectives:
1. inform participants about the project and the intellectual outputs IO1, IO2 and IO3
2. make participants more familiar with using autobiography in social inclusion of different vulnerable groups – particularly low skilled/qualified adults from migrants/minorities
3. identify possible follow-up activities at local, regional and national level
The Swedish partner – Mobilizing Expertise agreed with the coordinator and other partners that a participation from public structures is not necessary as in the national Swedish context the private sector (companies, NGO-s and social enterprises as Mobilizing Expertise) have the real power in migrants’ and minorities’ social inclusion.
So the event gathered 50 participants (we budgeted only 35 as it was mentioned in the application form but we had 50). The profile of the participants were mainly companies from Ideon Science park, students from Malmö and Lund universities, teachers from Adult education centre who teaches to immigrant adults and volunteers/youth workers from NGOs from Lund such as Tamam, Hello youth, IFALL and Caprifolen.
As there weren’t participants from public bodies, the main agenda of the event is divided into three parts as follows:
Session I
– participants’ registration (name games, ice breakers, group dynamic activities have been used)
– first speech from the host organisation – welcoming participants (Necmettin Meletli founder of ME and also trainer of NFE)
– presentation of the project (aim, objectives, activities, partners – Necmettin Meletli made presentation with the help of Karen Self who also arranged small group discussion on Erasmus plus opportunities. Necmettin Meletli as project manager of AMICI project has presented project aim, objectives, timeline and project results) and different non formal education activities that Mobilizing Expertise implement through Erasmus projects
– presentation of the intellectual outputs IO1, IO2, IO3.
– short introduction of autobiographical method
Session II
– presentation of one Swedish participant at the LTT from Rome (the other 3 couldn’t join due to Civd restrictions) and 3 from the local ToT, short statement about their impressions – The presentation took mostly on website of the project and participants have been motivated to be part of the e-learning course that we created on the project.
– 4 working groups moderated by the 4 participants (at the LTT and local ToT) – testing autobiographical method (short exercises aiming to deepen participants’ understanding of the method).
– presenting the results of the working groups, changing opinions about participants’ feelings
Session III
– 4 working groups moderated by the 4 participants (at the LTT and local ToT) – possible application of autobiographical method – particularly using IO1 – connected with common problems of the EU with social entrepreneurship and how we can contribute to solutions as companies, NGOs and universities. It was also about future collaboration where all actors could work and plan further action based on our project topic
– presenting the results of the working groups
– conclusions, future plans, final Q&A session
We created an email list and Whatsapp group for dissemination the project and follow up activities and added the participants’ contact data there. Three days after the seminar we sent them an e-mail to thank for their participation and kindly ask them to fill the evaluation questionnaire.
Processing the evaluation questionnaire Mobilising Expertize concluded that all of them appreciated the events in terms of content (topics, covered, speakers, the quality of intellectual outputs, logistic etc.) – al participants gave scores ”excellent” or ”very good”. Some participants (12%) considered the report between presentations and practical activities as ”good”, the others gave also ”excellent” or ”very good”. Also all participants agree (21 participants ”strongly” agreed) that the stories of migrants and minorities represents important life lessons for anyone and could be used as a tool for diminish racism and xenophobia and also for increasing inclusion of these groups.
Autobiographical Method for Migrants' and Minorities' Inclusion in Communities they are living In 