EUKN - European Urban Knowledge Network - Ausbildungsorientierte Elternarbeit and the intercultural opening of the city’s offices and companies in Frankfurt

Ausbildungsorientierte Elternarbeit and the intercultural opening of the city’s offices and companies in Frankfurt

Introduction

The project AOE (‘Ausbildungsorientierte Elternarbeit’) aims to inform migrant parents on the German educational and training system. Thereby, the municipality cooperates with migrant organisations and schools: the municipality trains interested migrants as mediators who conduct workshops and counsel migrants.
Within the framework of the European Programme ‘XENOS – Living and working in diversity’, the city organised the project ‘XENOS – Intercultural opening of the city’s offices and companies’ that aims to strengthen the cultural competence of the municipal staff and to increase the number of migrant employees.

Problem

Migrant parents often have little knowledge on the German educational and training system and on career opportunities of young people. The aim of this project is to inform migrant parents on this as well as on related issues such as dyslexia, hyperactivity, career counselling and multilingualism.
Due to the high diversity in the population, the city is convinced that the ‘intercultural openness’ of the city’s offices and of companies owned by the city is of high importance for the efficiency and quality of municipal services. Therefore, the city council agreed upon strengthening the cultural competence of the municipal staff and increasing the number of migrant employees. To reach this goal, Frankfurt’s Adult Education Centre ‘VHS’ implemented the project XENOS in cooperation with the ‘Office for Personnel and Organisation’ and the ‘Office for Multicultural Affairs’ (‘AmkA’).

Description

To reach the parents, the municipality does not implement these information events on its own, but cooperates with migrant organisations and schools: the ‘Office for Multicultural Affairs’ (‘AmkA’) trains interested migrants (e.g. teachers, social workers, psychologists) on the issues mentioned. These migrants act as mediators; they conduct workshops in migrant organisations and schools and counsel migrants in their mother tongue.
The XENOS project aimed, as first step, to identify reasons for the under-representation of migrants within the administration and identify municipal structures that discourage migrants from applying for and/or obtaining an apprenticeship at the municipality. Simultaneously, the employed staff should be sensitised to the topic of diversity and possible discrimination within the municipality.

Researcher: Doris Lüken-Klaßen, European Forum For Migration Studies (EFMS) at the university of Bamberg, Germany.

Results

The project AOE is highly appreciated and has been able to attract more and more participants. Currently, about 60 mediators of 35 migrant organisations and schools counsel migrants and conduct the workshops in 17 different languages. In 2006, 3,450 people participated in the workshops and counselling offers.
As a result of the XENOS project, the city enhanced its engagement concerning intercultural competence: the city implemented measures to increase the number of migrants within the municipality and to strengthen the intercultural competence of existing staff. Methods are, for instance, diversity-sensitive and migrant-specific advertising and information campaigns on apprenticeships at the municipality (taking place at job fairs and in schools), restructuring of recruitment procedures and intercultural training of staff.

Beneficiaries

Migrant parents and their children;
Migrant population of the city

Resources used

In-house resources (city);
In-house resources (city)

Contact info

Amt für multikulturelle Angelegenheiten der Stadt Frankfurt am Main
Lange Straße 25 - 27
60311 Frankfurt am Main
Germany
www.stadt-frankfurt.de/amka/
Helga Nagel (Director), tel. +49 69 212 38979

Project start date

//1997

Cities

Frankfurt am Main, Germany

Click here to download the Frankfurt case studies on diversity (PDF, Eng, 489 kB)

Document type

case

Themes

Urban Policy > Social inclusion & integration

Keywords

Integration of social groups