Migrant children (both first- and second-generation) starting school without the knowledge of their host country’s language find themselves in a disadvantaged position compared to native pupils, and their learning is often hindered until they overcome the language barrier. The situation is more or less the same with children whose mother tongue is a minority language for the host country. National language learning is an important aspect of stimulating their socio-cultural integration. When it comes to learning a European language as a second or foreign language, the use of the European cultural heritage and learning through heritage is a means to enrich the learning process. Children, who are already immersed in their own culture, are encouraged to understand and appreciate European culture here and elsewhere. It enables them to develop their sensibilities in relation to their immediate environment and their interest in things beyond it, thus beginning a process of opening up to the world. ‘Welcomm2 Explore Europe’ project implements a methodology for migrant and bilingual children’s language, communication and intercultural skills. The project addresses primary school children aged 6-12 years old, whose language skills in the language of the country they live in need support either because they are bilingual or have limited knowledge due to migration, children of the same age interested in exploring another European language and culture, educators (primary school teachers, language teachers, integration trainers, after school activity educators) and the children’s parents, with the main objectives to contribute to improvement of quality, attractiveness and accessibility of language learning through culture, to develop intercultural and communication competences and positive attitudes towards other cultures, and to improve awareness of the European cultural heritage.The project designes a model for language and intercultural learning through children’s immersion in their local and other cultures, enhancing their knowledge of European culture, multilingualism and diversity. Project approach compromised a communicative competence model: embedding the target groups in the development of the products, game-based activities: children become co-creators of the products and of their learning, integrated curriculum approach to teaching and learning: project outputs are designed for children to see the connections and relevance between subjects, and the learning vehicle of European cultural heritage. The project provided stimulated experience of children of being co-researchers, and co-imaginers and co-authors alongside with their teachers and families as a practice for their active and engaged participation in care, play, and learning.‘WelComm2 Explore Europe’ project’s results and achievements include:- A series of six board games, that invite players to explore the language and culture of European countries and regions: “Ontdek Nederland” is about the Netherlands using Dutch; “Explore la Belgique” is about Belgium using French; “Explora España” is about Spain using Spanish; “Explore Kent” is about Kent using English; “Опознай България” is about Bulgaria using Bulgarian; “Explorați România” is about Romania using Romanian; - 6 co-creation groups in 6 countries for inclusive learning and co-creation activities built for the development of the board games with 70 target group representatives;- 10 testing sessions of the board games organised in 6 countries with 108 target group representatives;- 10 workshops in 6 countries organised with local action teams for comic stories development with 123 target group representatives;- Comic books “Legends come to life” in NL, EN, ES, BG, FR, RO, containing six comic stories developed by children from local legends;- 19 Educational experience videos where children are the main actors and participated in the creation of scenarios, supported by 57 digital language exercises and mini games in 6 languages;- Guidelines for Educators: Methodology guidelines and a day-to-day tool for educators to support them in redesign their programmes and encourage them to use new methods as part of the development of education material for language and intercultural learning;- Multiplier events in six countries with a total of 572 participants involving target group members, education and integration stakeholders, policy-makers, etc. Project activities have been implemented by a consortium of 8 partners from 6 European countries (The Netherlands, Belgium, Bulgaria, Romania, Spain and the United Kingdom) all having significant and complementary expertise in development and promotion of high quality outputs and their mainstreaming in the partner countries and beyond. The outputs and the project approach can be transferred and used very easily in other countries and languages, thus provide the opportunity for a high flexibility and adaptability to national and European partners.

A lot has changed over the last decade around both attitudes/perception of refugees and continuing support of multiculturalism and diversity. Populism in Europe and beyond and the rise of extremist parties in many European countries is not helping this debate where xenophobia and far of the ‘other’ is increasing. A better understanding of other cultures and more initiatives to foster intercultural education become now more relevant than before. ‘Signs’ goes North project creates an innovative model to promote cultural diversity and social inclusion. The project is based on the highly successful Signs in the City methodology for obtaining basic language, communication and intercultural skills by exploring city’s signs signs and symbols (street signs, bar, restaurant, shop, banks, post office, graffiti and anything else ‘printed' as part of a city). ’Signs’ Goes North extended this methodology with innovative features matching the urgent needs of refugees and newly arrived migrants to understand the place, the language and culture in the host country, and transferred it to the important context of migrants and refugees integration in Sweden, Netherlands, Iceland and Denmark. Project objectives focused on:• providing refugees and newly arrived migrants with the means to adapt to a place of arrival easily and effectively, help them socialise and express themselves;• providing creative mutual learning experience for newcomers and natives, fostering respect and understanding for diversity, intercultural competencies and values;• developing effectively model for the inclusion of newcomers at the municipal level;• remove barriers to integration and promote equality of opportunity.’Signs’ Goes North project developed methods and material to support emerging linguistic, communication and cultural need of refugees and newly arrived migrants, providing tailored solutions for their early integration. Project approach compromised a needs analysis: focusing on target groups need in terms of better cultural integration, a communicative competence model: embedding the target groups in the development of the products, and mentoring and peer support: partnership and community learning using the expertise of experienced partners. This approach covers the different perspectives of migrants’ integration process, and turned into a prerequisite for immediate testing and implementation¨ and future sustainability.’Signs’ Goes North developed and piloted a practical learning model “Feel the city - share the feeling”, where newly arrived migrants/refugees, long-term migrants, staff of supporting organisations and native citizens worked together locally to defining specific needs, selecting places of interest and linguistic and cultural themes in their cities, were co-creators of content and material (working in partnership with partners and experts). The model allows the newcomers to understand the local culture better and to obtain skills in team work with local comunities and natives; on the other hand, the original population understands who the refugees are, and how to include them in mutual activities.While bidging digital art and storytelling and educational content the project developed:City and Language books - “Signs i Bollnäs och Söderhamn”, “Signs in Rotterdam”, “Signs in Reykjavik”, “Vis os Vejle/Signs in Vejle” - with visual and linguistic content for the hosting cities and languages, containing photography of city signs and related survival vocabulary, language and culture guidelines and facts, communicational tips;Digital Stories of cities and migrants - 8 short films telling the stories of 23 migrants, who already experienced the integration process in Sweden, Netherlands, Denmark and Iceland, presenting a community of many cultures within the host city and migrants’ own voice and vision;Digital learning resource - freely accessible, multidevice digital versions of the books, incl. audio pronouncation and translation into English.Project ouputs influenced the integration by involving migrants in practical inclusive activities together with local citizens and stakeholders, that were integral part of the development of the products - selection of linguistic and cultural content, local workshops, filming, content development and testing, informational and awareness-raising activities, etc. Thus, migrants were provided with competences to integrate in the local society during the project life. Project activities have been implemented by a consortium of 7 partners from 6 European countries (SE, NL, DK, IS, RO, UK) all having significant and complementary expertise in development and promotion of high quality outputs and their mainstreaming in the partner countries and beyond.

Traditionally the term ‘heritage’ is used to describe a people’s language, culture or architecture in a historic way. More current definitions of heritage focus rather on contemporary society in terms of what people have in common, promoting the values of diversity, civic participation and intercultural understanding. A city’s heritage is no longer a set of buildings, archeological sites or statues of people showcasing historic facts but also a set of values that promote civic engagement and participation, openness to society and critical thinking. The development of civic competences - knowledge, skills, attitudes and values that enable an individual to actively participate in the society – is a prerequisite for the active, democratic and civic engagement of people in their societies. Education in ‘values’ helps to build our civic heritage -inclusive societies on the shared values of democracy, tolerance and freedom by strengthening solidarity and local communities.The Covid-19 pandemic is already changing the way people are engaging with each other and how they are supporting their local communities and national initiatives. Activities related to civic engagement have become stronger than ever during this pandemic, getting people closer together during a time of extreme physical isolation. From informal local and small initiatives such as helping vulnerable neighbours during the pandemic, to large scale national programmes of volunteering to support health service or food production, all citizens have a role to play. We have also noted during this period, unprecedented support for a European action and involvement of citizens to support at European level. As we are still in the early days of this pandemic and these new ways of working, we will monitor how people’s civic engagement will progress. There will be a lot of mourning and reflection at the end of this crisis, but also quite a lot to celebrate on. Civic engagement is bound to be a success story. The project Our Civic Heritage seeks to promote European common values and civic education and engagement in Europe. It addresses three types of target groups: members of the public that are interested in civic participation activities, educators that teach civic participation and cultural heritage, and policy makers and those working in the cultural heritage and civic sector whether in a public or private capacity. The project’s aim is the promotion of European civic identity and engagement through the following specific objectives:- Enabling intercultural understanding- Promoting European cultural diversity- Embracing the common European values of openness, civic engagement, critical thinking, human rights- Increasing civic capacity training initiatives- Strengthening digital literacy and enabling digital engagement - Strengthening digital European citizenship actions The project will apply a comprehensive approach that includes provision for civic education with an intercultural dialogue to strengthen the civic participation capacity, digital, social, intercultural competences and critical thinking of adult citizens of diverse background and generations. It will provide educators with clear methodological guidance regarding civic heritage, authentic teaching resources and good practice examples.‘Our Civic Heritage’ builds its methodology on experiences of 10 partner organisations in citizenship education, training and promotion of European values, history and culture, and will produce and disseminate at EU level intellectual outputs that will significantly contribute to the innovation of the adult education sector in the 8 partner countries and beyond.The project creates easily adaptable and transferable outputs - digital library with study cases of civic engagement initiatives in action, civic heritage methodology, digital impact stories, training kit to digital civic actions, curriculum for civic skills development and actions with high potential of adapting to different learning styles and transferability to other countries and environments. A total of 200 targeted citizens/adults will benefit of the pilot activities: workshops and local civic events; 160 target groups representatives and stakeholders will be involved in civic engagement initiatives identification; 8 target group actors will share their impact stories; 16 adult educators will be directly involved in the validation process of outcomes. Project results will directly reach at least 800 persons (citizens, adult educators, stakeholders) via project activities, multiplier events, creating a strong base for long term exploitation.In long term, the awareness and development of civic skills and civic capacity will influence directly the social, cultural and environmental welfare in the regions involved and the project educational products and practical civic actions will contribute to the integration of European values and civic skills training into European curricula.

Europe aims at a European community that is entrepreneurial, innovative and open, with more and better jobs, based on new technologies and ICT. Within the EU, migrants represent an important pool of potential entrepreneurs, but can face, as other more vulnerable groups, specific cultural and linguistic obstacles. These issues need to be addressed in full to give support equitable to that received by all other entrepreneurial groups. One particular commitment in the European Entrepreneurship 2020 action plan is to facilitate entrepreneurship among migrants already present and residing in the EU based on best practices from EU countries.The ALMA Project aims at strengthening migrants’ entrepreneurial and innovative capacity by encouraging their linguistic and intercultural competence. The project develops innovative language and intercultural learning methods and instruments to help migrants to get prepared for starting a business. It will stimulate migrants to begin a new business, will inspire them and will give them the guidelines to help them to start and run a successful company within a new cultural and linguistic context. The project will also provide educators, volunteers and professionals working with migrants with innovative learning and information materials.The general objectives of the project will be to:Inspire migrants and improve their skills to set up their own businessImprove migrants’ language and communication skills in the field of entrepreneurship Guide migrants in building business skills considering intercultural aspectsProvide opportunities for professional development for (volunteer) adult educators working with migrantsIn order to achieve strengthening migrants’ entrepreneurial and innovative capacity and their linguistic and intercultural competence, the partnership will use the following approaches:- Intercultural awareness in language learning to improve migrant’s abilities for starting own business- Role models approach: Exploring migrant entrepreneurs in partners countries as role models for target groups to identify with - Use real life stores to develop the learning materials that will match the project objectives to inspire and get migrants prepared to start their own business in the new country- Bridging digital storytelling and educational content to develop specific skills and competencesThe steps for development of the project activities are as follows:• Setting up a network of stakeholders in the partner countries and in countries beyond the partnership. They will be involved as associated partners in the development, testing, application and feedback of different project activities. They will be also used as a forum for discussion and analysis on the needs of the target groups as well as the main channel for sustaining the project results after the project end.• Research activities in all partner countries to identify and select specific examples of active migrant entrepreneurs• Identifying role models and elaborating their description (case studies)• Development of digital stories/films of the selected role models • Development of intercultural and linguistic methodology with focus on the specific knowledge and skills required for migrant entrepreneurs competence• Development of ALMA Digital Learning Kit - a comprehensive, attractive and interactive e-learning space to empower migrant adults to develop language and intercultural skills needed for facilitating their entrepreneurial venture• Piloting the learning kit in Bulgaria, Sweden, Spain, Italy, UK and The Netherlands• Developing of ALMA Pocket Guide - 6 practical guides for migrant entrepreneurs in the Netherlands, Italy, Spain, UK, Sweden, Bulgaria• Organization of exploitation events in 6 countries for dissemination, valorization and sustainability. The project’s envisaged outcomes and results (both during the project lifetime and after its end) are:Migrants • Acquired knowledge of the language and culture of the host country by innovative methods and products, designed in an entrepreneurial context • Enhanced inspiration to starting an own business • Improved language and communication skillsProfessionals working with/supporting migrants in host country • Educators will be equipped with specific language material for migrants who want to become entrepreneurs • Social / community workers will be equipped with tools to help migrants with their labour market integrationStakeholders • They will be provided with the project results and the experiences to use them in future policies on migrants’ integration and participation.ALMA will be implemented by 8 organizations from 6 European countries. European collaboration implies finding more sustainable solutions and establishing a strong international partnership team for future work in this area.