Final project report

Please click on the covers to open the different language versions of the report.

The final project report brings together the conclusions of the project and is structured as follows:

1. Background and rationale of the INVOLVE project
2. Immigration and volunteering – a European panorama in 7 countries
3. Barriers to integration and criteria of good practices to overcome these
4. Good practice examples in Europe
5. The contribution of volunteering to integration
6. Recommendations to policy makers at different levels and practitioners in mainstream and migrant organizations
7. Conclusions
8. List of contacts per country



The final report concludes:


The INVOLVE project has confirmed that there is little if any research on volunteering of migrants and its role in integration. Some partners have done primary action research to address this lack of data. The main findings suggest that, while volunteering is generally perceived to contribute to a better integration, there are still major barriers to more involvement of migrants in such activities – at personal, organisational and societal level.

Removing these barriers must be a common effort of all stakeholders:

• Volunteer organisations and migrant organisations need to improve their knowledge of the possibilities which volunteering offers migrants;
• Mainstream organisations need to become accessible to migrants, to commit to diversity and to offer quality and empowering volunteer placements;
• Government needs to tear down legal barriers related to the status of migrants;
• Migrant organisations need to foster both bonding and bridging social capital in migrant communities.
  

Third country nationals are far from being a homogenous group – which makes it impossible to find solutions to integration that fits them all. In addition, they form only a fraction of the total number of immigrants in European countries and it seems sometimes to be somewhat “artificial” to focus only on them. When promoting migrant volunteering, mainstream organisations tend not to have strategies on third country nationals in particular, but they want to embrace different immigrant communities. Integration policies often target naturalized immigrants who have, because of the naturalization, ceased to be third country nationals. Reality proves to be too complex to fit into such clear-cut categories.

In the same way it is impossible to identify good practice which fits all country contexts and which provides answers to the challenges identified. This report proposes some common criteria for good practice which makes it more likely that volunteer organisations succeed in recruiting migrant volunteers. Nevertheless, good practice both on the policy and organisational level can obviously only be transferred after thorough analysis of the targeted groups and the context in which the practice is to be transferred. The INVOLVE project tried in this sense to instigate discussions and learning processes based on the experiences outlined above.

In spite of all the differences – volunteering has been found by all country partners to play a role as an indicator of integration – and one which contributes to several other indicators as it enable migrants to acquire basic knowledge of the host society, to participate in society through non-formal and informal education and to improve their employability on the labour market. It also generally contributes to the empowerment of migrants and activates their capacity for self-help. It is, however, a complex and changing canvass, which has not yet been researched sufficiently to make full use of its potential as an essential element in integratiuon policies.

But volunteering also enables the host society to better deal with increasing diversity and to accommodate change, as well as being a means by which both immigrants and non-immigrants meet and to take civic action on community issues that matter to both of them.

The potential of volunteering for integration is, however, not realised automatically. It requires targeted policies and efforts by all stakeholders to ensure equal access to organisations and institutions, as well as the openness of the host society to facilitate this access and accommodate the immigrant in ways that help to break down existing barriers.

Networking between migrant and mainstream organisations has been noted as a key component of success. And government at different levels should help create an enabling environment both for volunteering in general and for migrants to get involved in volunteering. The best initiatives start bottom-up – but need a framework in which to emerge.

All levels of Government - and mainstream organisations – should commit to diversity – through a ‘top down and bottom up’ approach. Governments should develop policies which acknowledge volunteering to be a legal right to every migrant regardless of status – available as of the day of arrival.

Existing formal and informal volunteering conducted by migrants and migrant organisations needs to be publicly recognized and acknowledged.

The institutions at the European level should ensure that volunteering is included as an instrument and an indicator of integration in one of the next Handbooks on Integration of the EU and that special attention is attributed to volunteering in the implementation of the Common Basic Principles of Integration. In order to strengthen the role of volunteering in integration issues, the EU should develop a comprehensive strategy on volunteering and its role in European societies.

Finally, some of the concepts explored in this report may have to be reconsidered or extended in their meaning. Volunteering needs to defined more broadly in order to embrace the diversity of activity it represents, especially informal and non-organisational volunteering which corresponds with many migrants´ attitudes and understanding of volunteering. While the European Commission seems to have found the lowest common denominator in its definition of integration, there is still no widely shared understanding of its meaning. A particular focus on political and social participation might be helpful in integration debates – with volunteering in its different forms being a major instrument.