The Society “Shelter “Safe House”” informs that from 2 January to 28 September activities were implemented within the scope of the project “Support Activities for Persons Under International Protection II” for the purposes of promoting the inclusion of persons under international protection in the Latvian society.
Within nine months five groups have completed the integration training course – 73 persons in total from 17 countries: Russia (16), Azerbaijan (8), Eritrea (7), Afghanistan (5), Turkey (4), Georgia (3), Syria (2), Sudan (1), Bangladesh (1), Pakistan (2), Tajikistan (1), Kyrgyzstan (1), Congo (1), Uzbekistan (4), Egypt (3), Iraq (13), Ukraine (1). Certificates on listening of the integration course have been issued to 69 persons. Lectors indicate that the course listeners were most interested in migration, employment, education and healthcare matters. It is known that that sixth group will start the integration training course of 29 October.
Integration courses provide an opportunity to their participants to acquire knowledge about Latvia, its state system, history, culture and traditions, practical information about Latvia, information about integration into the society, non-discrimination principles, communication, religious and cultural differences, housing market, employment options, education system and opportunities to obtain education. Participants can also learn about spending their leisure time, the health care system, social security network and social assistance system in Latvia. Childcare was organised during the training to enable families with children to participate. Translators from seven languages and language specialists with knowledge of Turkish, Dari, Arabic, Tigrinya, Georgian, Kurdish and Urdu ensured qualitative communication with members of the training groups.
To provide persons under international protection with the opportunity to acquire the knowledge and skills in the Latvian language needed for work and in everyday life, while also developing the major language skills: reading skills, speaking skills, writing skills, listening skills and grammar use, in the frameworks of the Support Actions for Persons under International Protection II project the Latvian language course began. By the end of September, it was attended by 54 persons subject to international protection, 46 of which have received certificates about completion of the course. The teacher of Latvian Lolita Zilberte indicates that the course listeners generally had a positive attitude to the training and willingly helped each other. “Course listeners were very active during classes – willingly participated in situational language games, diligently did homework, learned something individually in addition, using the online training tools developed by the Latvian Language Agency. If we compare training groups – they were very different from the point of view of learning experience, namely, different age, education level, which generally influenced the training process”.
Four groups have mastered the course of Latvian with participation of 54 persons from 17 countries: Eritrea (7), Sudan (1), Congo ( 1), Bangladesh (1), Afghanistan (2), Russia (13), Azerbaijan ( 3), Georgia (3), Israel (1), Kyrgyzstan (1), Ukraine (1), Belarus (1), Egypt (2), Iraq (12), Pakistan (1), Syria (1), Turkey (3). The fifth training group started the course of Latvian on 23 October.
As part of the project a mobile application "First Steps in Latvia" has been developed to ensure availability of information about the life in Latvia to the target group. A free download of the test version of the application is available at Google Play and App Store. To make it easier for the target group of the project to find answers to frequently asked questions about the life in Latvia, information from the questions and answers section published on www.beglis.lv website is included in the mobile application. The application is available in Latvian, English, French, Arabic and Dari. The Society indicates that at present work is ongoing on the improvement of the application content, and it is tested by the project target group. A video on practical use of the application was made – a video manual, which is shown to the target group, so that they know how to use the mobile application, when they start the course, and get additional information.
Until 30 June 2020 support under the Support Actions for Persons under International Protection II project will be provided to 500 persons, among them adults, children, and illiterate asylum seekers.
The Support Actions for Persons under International Protection II project is implemented with the support from the Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund and co-financed by the European Union. Grant Agreement No. PMIF/9/2017/2/01/
Information was prepared by: Rasa Salina (Rasa Saliņa), Multimedia Communications Specialist, phone 22026355, e-mail: rasa.salina@patverums-dm.lv