Barka UK is a partner in the European project “ONE-STOP MOBILITY SHOPS” led by European Citizen Action Service (ECAS) and sponsored by the European Commission, DG Employment, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities.

COMING SOON: Conference in London 

Two years on after the European Year of Workers’ Mobility, ECAS with the partners undertake to test a new instrument for facilitating mobility: one-stop mobility shops, which operate in four European regions

• City of Paris run by the Association Charonne.

• London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham - run by the Barka UK in London

• Dungannon and South Tyrone Borough in the Northern Ireland - run by S.T.E.P. - South Tyrone Empowerment Programme

• City of Poznań - run by the Barka  Foundation of Mutual Help

Each of partners works in partnership with local public authorities. Department of Social and Sanitary Affairs (DASS) of the French Ministry of Health and Dungannon and South Tyrone Borough Council are already the official partners in the project. During one year (April 2008 – March 2009), partners will:

-          provide assistance in three European regions (London area in England, South Tyrone in Northern Ireland and Paris area in France) to host and integrate migrant workers and to prepare them for departure or re-integrate in the fourth, sending region (Wielkopolska region in Poland). The assistance will be provided by a structure “one stop mobility shop” composed of NGO and local authority working with other associated agencies and organisations. They will endeavour to provide wide-ranging assistance to migrant workers and improved, coherent service in the areas of housing, banking, health, vocational and language training, career advice, integration in the local community and others. Last but not least, they will work to reduce exploitation of and prejudice towards migrant workers.

The main task of the “mobility shops” established in four European regions is to provide a wide-ranging services and assistance for migrant workers in their communities. The issues that this project seeks to address concern the situation of the minority of migrant workers who do not succeed their mobility experience and experience social exclusion in the country of destination.

-          test and develop effective partnerships between the wide range of mobility stakeholders. It is believed that European projects can help achieve a partnership which could otherwise be difficult to create.  Considering that the requirements of migrants particularly those most in need, cover a wide range of statutory, non-governmental and private sector stakeholders, partnerships are likely to include agencies which may well have no history of working together and will almost certainly involve introducing new-comers to cater to the particular needs of the migrant community targeted.

-          spread the idea of “one stop mobility shop” to other European regions, particularly targeting the pre-established list of “wider circle partners”, aiming, in the longer run, at establishing the European network of “mobility shops” which, thanks to new sources of funding identified by Steering Group, could become sustainable in the medium term.

Careful evaluation will lead to the follow-up of this project.

The idea of this kind of service for migrants isn’t new. It has been already highlighted in the EQUAL guidelines on partnership that building “bridges” “interfaces” or “one-stop shops” that bring together different and uncoordinated services and support structures can resolve difficulties that, in isolation, individual organisations would be unable to deal with.  Also, partners themselves already run projects dealing with migrant workers and working in the area of social inclusion. Without calling it “one stop shop”, such a structure (run by NGO joined in 2004-2007 by the local authority) has already existed in South Tyrone in Northern Ireland since 2001 (“migrant support centre” has been first run by the NGO S.T.E.P., which later entered in a strategic partnership with the local government). In Paris area the close collaboration between NGO providing wide-range services for migrant workers and the Ministry of Health was launched in January 2007. In Wielkopolska region, Poland similar operations of Barka Foundation and its outreach activities in London has been supported by Polish Senate and London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham. Similar outlets of Barka Foundation should be established in the framework of European Migrants Network EuroMI in Dublin and Madrid.

Now that all the partners are actually well into their activities of services for migrant workers and they have all developed partnerships with public authorities and other mobility stakeholders, the overall approach can be summarised as Consolidate, Evaluate and Advocate.

The project is running for 12 months from April 2008 to March 2009

See timetable of the project. (here we will attach the timetable in pdf)

Activities of the project are the following:

I.                   Steering group meetings

These partners’ meetings will provide guidance and overall coordination, meetings will take place 5 times during the life of the project in :

·     Dungannon on 14 April 2008 (see the report form the first meeting)

·     Poznan on 30 June – 1 July 2008 (see the report form the second meeting)

·     Paris in November 2008

·     London in December 2008

·     Brussels in February 2009

The Steering Group will oversee the broad strategy of the European network, ensure the overall coordination and review the progress made so far. In addition, the Steering Group meetings are open to new local and international partners since their aim is also to:

·     provide a forum of the exchange of contacts, information, good practice and innovative approaches;

·     analyze changing European and national context of migration;

·     mobilize external support for the partners and the network itself from politicians and media;

·     investigate possible ways of continuing the European cooperation and ensuring sustainability of the one-stop shops.

II.                CONFERNECES 

Four seminars are foreseen in the autumn 2008 in order to facilitate communication and advocacy for one-stop shop at local, national and European level. These seminars will be organized in each location, according to a common framework:

the first session will examine the European policies and programmes relevant to the  free movement of workers and one-stop shop concept; especially PROGRESS programme, the Mobility Action Plan and the good practices delivered by EQUAL;

the second session will examine the local application of the ABC of the one-stop shop:

            A - assistance to the migrants,

            B - building bridges between public and   private the stakeholders in the local context

            C - cooperation on the European level.

Each of the seminars will involve the European partners, representatives of the national and European Institutions and provide the widest possible range of stakeholders in the project at the local level.

See the programme of the Paris conference on 28 November 2008. (we will put it here)

III.             Operations on the grass-roots level

These operations take place in London, Paris, Poznan South Tyrone and Wielkopolska regions. They are run independently by project partners target vulnerable migrant workers in the four locations. The assistance provided range from solving an immediate crisis to helping the migrant find better employment, housing and facilitating integration with the local community. The examples of services are:

·  crisis situations assistance;

• assistance in the case of illness and injury,

·  orientation in the alcohol and drug dependency treatment;

·  restitution of personal documents;

·  helping in administrative procedures in relation to banking services, finding accommodation, social and health insurance.

• finding a save place for homeless people,
• sorting out personal documents, career advice,
• providing information on worker’s rights,  national labour law and their rights as European citizens;

These services are up and running and can be used for free by the migrants:

City of Paris
Association Charonne
104/106 Rue Oberkampf, 75 011 Paris
tel: +33 671 55 20 95
e-mail: bociek@charonne.asso.fr

In London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham
Broadway Day Centre
14 Market Lane (Off Goldhawk Road), W12 8EZ
tel: +44 207 275 77 68
e-mail: barkauk@barkauk.org

Dungannon and South Tyrone Borough
Migrant Support Centre
Unit T7, Dugannon Business Park
2 Coalisland Road, Dugannon BT 71 6JT
tel: +44 28 87 72 90 02
e-mail: info@stepni.ni

City of Poznań
Fundacja Barka
ul. św. Wincentego 6/9, 61-003 Poznań
tel: +48 61 66 82 300
e-mail: barka@barka.org.pl

IV.             Citizen’s Panel

The panel will be based on the successful exercise of the Citizens’ Panel in the framework of ECAS previous project “Workers’ Mobility in EU-25”. In a nutshell, each partner will select 2-4 persons who used their one-stop shop services, they will be coached by partners and ECAS so that they can have an in-depth discussion among them and come up with recommendations for national and EU policy-makers. The panel will take place in January 2009.

V.                Closing conference

The final stage of the project will take the form of a dialogue between the project partners and senior figures in the European Institutions. European NGOs working in the field of social exclusion and mobility and media; this conference will be a great occasion to highlight the achievements of the “mobility shops” and their networks, on this conference partners will present a final report.
 

VI.             final report 

Follow-up recommendations in the form of the final report made in order to evaluate the operations of the local one-stop mobility shops, give guidelines on the one-stop mobility shops and recommendations for the future actions.
 

ECAS and partners are grateful to the
European Commission, DG Employment,
Social Affairs and Equal opportunities
for its financial support 

For more information on the project please visit:

www.ecas-citizens.eu

For further information contact
Project Coordinator
Joanna Trautsolt
tel.: +44 7975 654 797
e-mail: barka.UK@googlemail.com