This morning, the Euro-Arab Foundation for Higher Studies held a national mentoring event aimed at leading professionals from social organisations, NGOs and mediation services working with asylum seekers and refugees. The director of the Department of Research and Projects, Javier Ruipérez Canales, together with the coordinator of this activity and researcher of this department, Daniel Pérez García, and Celia Sánchez Villarejo, both researchers of this department, have explained what the mentoring programme Approaching mentoring for a successful inclusion of Refugees and Asylum Seekers of the European project IN2PREV of which the Euro-Arab consortium is part of, and whose objectives include fostering cooperation and collaboration between police forces and NGOs representing refugees and asylum seekers. It also aims to establish accompaniment and inclusion strategies, adapting them to each context and improving the skills of professionals, thus mitigating any risk of vulnerability initially detected.
This mentoring programme, which will take place in 2025 simultaneously in Spain, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Slovakia, Moldova, Portugal, Poland and Romania, is a group mentoring process, where each mentor can have up to 3 mentees. It includes a preparation phase for mentorees, as well as session plans that will help to create a safe space for the mentorees and foster better communication and the development of a climate of trust between the mentorees and the host community.
Thematic organisation of each mentoring session
A total of twelve mentoring sessions with an approximate duration of one and a half hours each have been established. They will deal with: 1. needs assessment; 2. bureaucratic issues involved in the migration process of the mentored persons; 3. integration into the host community with, for example, an open discussion on the differences and similarities between the country of origin and the host country; 4. language barriers; 5. religion and culture; 6. job search and the working environment; 7. educational environment; 8. social integration; 9. mental health; 10. health care system; 11. the connection with the country of origin and 12. reflection and closing session.
