Enhancing pedagogy, cultural safety, Normal Life and Entrepreneurship in International asylum education

Forskningsprogrammet har i samarbejde med pædagoguddannelsen, jordemoderuddannelsen og Act2Learn samt forskere fra Sociologi og socialt arbejde, AAU og Asylcenter Vesthimmerland igangsat et pilotprojekt i efteråret 2016 og som kører frem til oktober 2017 med henblik på at søge fondsmidler til gennemførelse af et større projekt.

Udarbejdelse af projektbeskrivelse er sket i et tæt samarbejde mellem forskere og praksis. Resultatet af arbejde indtil nu er formulering af tre fokusområder der efterafsluttet pilotprojekt kan tydeliggøres yderligere, således at grundforskningsniveau er inden for rækkevidde. Både pilotptojekt og hovedprojekt har et internationalt perspektiv, hvorfor dele af interessetilkendegivelsen er forfattet på engelsk.

The proposed project builds on the positive results achieved in two future workshops organised with 5 asylum centres (2 children centre and 3 family centres) in northern Denmark and staff of UCN and Aalborg University. The future workshop which was carried out in November and December 2016 had a 38 and 40 participants in each session. Although the future workshops were highly successful in outlining some of the challenges refugees and professionals encounter in their daily routines of proving normal life in Denmark, we also realised the inevitable limitations arising from restrictions in the curriculum structure offered to professionals, cultural misunderstandings, health problems, language and communication barriers, and problems with the accreditation with the educational qualifications of asylum seekers. As a result, the pilot project will build on this to develop integrated competence based programmes making full use of interdisciplinary problem solving skills and other learner centred teaching and learning approaches to integrate, enhance and promote entrepreneurship, innovation and sustainability in international asylum education.

Theme 1: Schooling for Asylum seekers: the purpose: Construct and structure patterns of knowledge creation and experience sharing to enable asylum seekers meet the basic EU reception norms and ease the integration process in to the Danish society.

Theme 2: Everyday life of Asylum seekers: seeks to give priority in terms of opportunities and access to socialize, play, or divert the mind, such that asylum seekers could be mainstreamed in Danish society even if they are entitled to a short stay, or a rejection and a deportation order to leave Denmark.

Theme 3: Family Life and Care: ensure that a cultural safe care is provided by health care practitioner and the recipient of the care determines the safety of the care..

The goal is to design learner centred, interdisciplinary programmes which implement a competence based approach to teaching and learning and will function as ‘best practice’ examples for educational reform and change at institutional, national and regional levels. To achieve this goal the immediate aim is to provide training and equip refugees with hands on skills in an event they finally settle in Denmark or return to their home country such skills could facilitate the resettlements’ efforts and to stem the migration of poverty refugees. In doing so, the project seeks to design an educational change program to educate refugees with skills for the global labor market as job seekers and creators. In doing so, we aim to make the education of refugees reflect the Bologna Process. In order to reach the goal we wants to create an international op to date education for professionels working in refugees and asylum – seekers centre and to provides educations in social work (pedagogues) with knowledgebased teaching and materials.