Abstract:

The paper presents the main findings from a desk and field research acquired in Romania in the framework of the project “Harnessing the potential of migrant women as integration experts” (acronym INTEGR8, reference no. HOME/2015/AMIF/AG/INTE/9101) funded by the Directorate-General Migration and Home Affairs of the European Commission, under the Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund. The aim of the project is to develop a bespoke accredited “Migrant Integration Expert” curriculum that is specifically addressed to migrant women. Consortium partners are of the opinion that integration will not be achieved by doing to migrant communities, or doing for migrant communities, but rather only by doing with migrant communities. The purpose of the new curriculum is to train and qualify migrant women to enable them to work within their respective migrant communities to support integration with host communities and with other migrant communities. To identify the needs of migrant women for becoming integration experts, the Romanian members of the consortium have performed a Literature Review and interviews with (a) migrant women and (b) Migrant Agencies and Educators. This paper analyses the results of the research on needs analysis and points out the barriers to integration and the needed support.

Keywords:

Integration, migrant women, needs analysis.