EUKN - European Urban Knowledge Network - INVOLVE – Integration of third country nationals through volunteering

INVOLVE – Integration of third country nationals through volunteering

Introduction

Migration, integration and volunteering are subject to considerable public and political debate in Europe. The INVOLVE project aimed to link these debates. The project focused on finding an answer to the following question: ‘How can volunteering be better used in order to facilitate integration needed as a consequence of migration?’ INVOLVE has made explicit the potential of volunteering as an instrument for improving the integration of immigrants, urging national and local governments to pursue action.

Problem

The EU has welcomed some 20 million “third country nationals”: persons with a nationality other than one of the EU-25. Immigration is more and more seen to be a necessity in countries with an ageing society and labour shortages in certain areas of the economy. The EU has been developing an increasing number of policy initiatives in the field of immigration and integration.

The INVOLVE project was set up to explore innovative solutions to the question of the “social integration” and “active participation” of third country nationals – focusing on volunteering as an instrument.

Description

Interest in migrant volunteering has been rising in the past years especially in those countries with a strong civil society tradition and longstanding awareness of the key role that volunteering has for the social fabric and cohesion of society. Recognition of the fact that civic participation and voluntary action is an important cornerstone of a thriving democracy leads to a strong interest in whether immigrant communities are part of this cornerstone and, if not, what must be done to encourage civic activities in these communities.

Voluntary action can be defined as the sum of all activities, which citizens do for each other unpaid and based on their free will. It is a resource for this two-way integration process, which has not yet received full recognition. The question as to how this resource can be further developed has been the central focus of the INVOLVE project.

Approach

Seven countries participated in the project:

Austria
England
France
Germany
Hungary
Netherlands
Spain

Each partner country has set up a national expert group of up to ten experts in the field. These expert groups collected the research data feeding into the national INVOLVE reports. The results and conclusions of this work were presented at seminars, in order to instigate a transnational debate.

Themes of the research included:

facts and figures on volunteering and immigration in the seven countries
the concept of integration and the attitude of migrants towards volunteering
barriers preventing migrants from volunteering
good practice to overcome these barriers
role of local, national and EU policies and programmes to support migrant volunteer involvement
partnership models between stakeholders

Results

The project increased the insight into what contributions voluntary work can make to the process of better integrating third country nationals into the host society.
Integration is a two-way process and is encouraged most by direct interaction. Volunteering offers ample opportunities for this and therefore holds the potential of being a very successful instrument for the integration of immigrants.
The participants in the INVOLVE project came up with sixteen concrete recommendations to policy makers to encourage volunteering by third country nationals.

Contact info

European Volunteer Centre
Phone: +32 2 511 75 01
cev@cev.be

Project start date

01/06/2005

Links

Visit the INVOLVE project website Visit the European Volunteer Centre website

Read the INVOLVE final report (PDF, Eng, 890 KB)

Document type

case

Themes

Urban Policy > Social inclusion & integration > Integration of social groups

Keywords

Ethnic minorities