Integration

Municipal Service for Intercultural Mediation

The Municipal Service for Intercultural Mediation is a service provided by Ermua Town Council for the education community with the objective of fostering positive social changes that favour intercultural dialogue, equal opportunities for minority cultures and the full and equal participation of migrant people in the education community.

Functions:

• Information and guidance for the education community.
• Intercultural education and raising awareness
• Analysis and conflict resolution
• Participation of migrant families
• Support for ethnic minorities on their educational path
• Promotion of intercultural coexistence

Programmes:

• Third Culture Programme. Promotion of the Basque language and minority languages.
• Assistance for migrant families who have recently joined the education sector.
• Support for schools for the reception of new pupils and managing diversity.
• Encourage the participation of immigrant families in the education community.
• Development of actions in favour of intercultural coexistence in the community.

Where can I get more information?

Department of Immigration

Language volunteers Hitz egidazu-Habla conmigo-Talk to me

This is voluntary programme for language volunteers that creates networks among people of a diverse language and cultural background.

Objectives:

1) Provides foreign people with a natural and informal environment in which they can practise their oral expression in Spanish and Basque.

2) Channels solidarity and facilitates a sharing of knowledge among the citizens of Ermua in a multicultural context.

Who can become a volunteer?

• *Adults over the age of 18
• *Who have a spare hour once a week.
• *Foreign people who speak English, French or other languages can participate as volunteers with others who would like to practise these languages.

Who can be an apprentice?

• Spanish language group: adults, in a literacy programme (Adult Education Centres, State Language Schools) (CEPA, EOI) and with basic skills
• Basque language group: adults in a Basque language programme (Basque Language Schools, State Language Schools) (Euskaltegi, EOI) and with a basic knowledge of Basque.

Where do I sign up? Where can I get more information?

Empowerment of women and cultural diversity

This is a programme that provides women with a space for meeting and training so that they can embark on their path to personal and collective empowerment.

Empowerment refers to a process of individual and collective consciousness that offers women the opportunity to improve their social, economic and political position.

Objectives:

• 1) To promote a reflexion on what it means, “to be a woman” in different cultures and the beliefs that influence their daily lives.
• 2) To equip participants with the knowledge needed to access the resources in our society.
• 3) To reinforce personal independence.
• 4) To foster collective action through participation based on an intercultural focus.

Methodology:

Group sessions led by a psychologist, expert on individual and group intervention with women from a gender perspective.

Length: 15 sessions of 2 hours. One session a week.

The makeup of the group takes into account cultural diversity and women’s vulnerability within the municipality.

For:

Adult women resident in Ermua.

Where can I get more information?

Department of Immigration

Prevention of Female Genital Mutilation

This programme provides two kinds of training:

1) Through seminars for professionals working in health and socio-educational areas.

2) Through a programme, "Training as Health Agents for the Prevention of FGM" within a wider programme about women, health and violence. Aimed at immigrant women from countries or belonging to ethnic groups in which FGM is still carried out.

Objectives:

To equip health care and social work professionals with abilities, resources and tools in order to learn how to deal with women that they meet who have been subject to FGM, and to identify risk factors and contribute to the elimination of this practice.

To convey knowledge from the "empowerment" of women immigrants, addressing broad based issues concerning women, health and violence, such as knowledge about the body, self-care, sexual and reproductive rights, solidarity among women, emotional and sexual relationships, gender equality, violence towards women, resources and how to gain access to them.

To contribute to the formalisation of the Action Protocol at local level.

Methodology:

Group sessions led by a psychologist, expert in clinical psychology, a sexologist and a lawyer.

Length: between 12 and 15 hours for each training session.

Sharing of information and its impact: The women participants commit to sharing information gained from other companions in the community and to let the organisation know the impact of this process afterwards.

Further information

Department of Immigration

Employment and training strategy: vulnerable groups

What is it

This programme provides two kinds of training:

1) Diagnostic. Identifies specific categories of facts about migration and/or the cultural diversity that generates vulnerable situations and/or exclusion from the employment market.

2) Coordination with employment and training agents in order to adapt training processes and labour market access to the different situations of vulnerability and/or exclusion that have been detected.

3) Implementation of dynamic initiatives with groups so that there is a gradual acquisition of abilities that lead to greater independence on the training and employment path.

Objectives:

To equip employment and training professionals with the abilities, resources and tools that will contribute to a reduction of particular difficulties for specific groups associated with their migrant journey and/or issues of a cultural origin.

To provide vulnerable groups with socio-employment skills.

To develop training- employment routes that include a diverse cultural perspective.

Methodology:

• Research and diagnosis
• Multidisciplinary coordination
• Design transversal training courses
• Techniques for working in groups

Programmes:

• Recognition of foreign qualifications
• Transversal courses for Professional Certificates
• Dynamic socio-employment initiatives for Maghrebi women
• Training-employment routes for domestic workers
• Socio-employment initiatives for associations

Department of Immigration