Abstract:

The recent war in Syria, the political instability and terror across the Middle East and North Africa region in recent years has entailed over one million refugees to Europe, and the influx is predicted to continue in the years to come.

ReEntry is an innovative new project which aims to support refugees and migrants living across Europe into self-employment. To be self-employer demands specific skills.

One of the aims of the project is to create a “Catalogue for Migrant Entrepreneurs” which will be presented on an e-platform. The consortium will develop and promote an e-platform with access to information on best practices, initiatives and learning materials that have been identified and collected by project partners and which have been proven to be applicable to support migrant entrepreneurship. These examples will be made available with translations in each partner language. We will develop and promote an online interactive forum for networking, exchange of information, experiences and good practices between project target groups, stakeholders and end-users.
Besides refugees, the main target group addressed by the ReEntry project are Vocational Education and Training (VET) and Adult Education organisations and professionals that are working to support the socio-economic integration of migrants.

This online catalogue will also help VET staff and career advisors to learn about best practices and innovative solutions to encourage migrant entrepreneurship. Through the use of an online catalogue of best practices collected from across Europe, ReEntry will upskill and improve information provision to guidance and VET professionals who work directly with migrants and refugees as career advisors and coaches. Career guidance counsellors and job coaches while working directly with migrants, are also helping them to improve their access to employment. Supporting refugees and migrants into entrepreneurship brings many benefits; firstly being self-employed means that the migrant has created their own job, with the potential to employ other staff in the future.

The ReEntry project is promoted by a consortium of six organisations from across Europe with vast experience inf collaborating in EU funded projects, and in working directly with the project target group. These organisations come from Ireland, Austria, Slovenia, Slovakia, Czech Republic and Portugal – six European countries each with different experiences of receiving and integrating migrants.

At this point each partner are working with a range of stakeholders in their countries including migrant research organisations and networks, social partners and business support agencies.

In this article we will present the results of the first step of this project. We present an overview of best practices, initiatives and programmes which specifically aim to support and facilitate the learning and migrant entrepreneurship in Portugal.

We present the national policies for migrant entrepreneurship and profile some national educational programmes and initiatives aimed at improving migrant employability, self-employment and learning. As a result we also identify the main features that should consider when we are creating an e-learning environment and a community of practice to this specific target.

Keywords:

e-learning Community, Community of Practices, Refugee.