Problem background of the project

The target group is consisting of young migrants, including asylum seekers and refugees, undocumented migrants and migrants from countries of EU as well, from 17 to 25 years old residing on the territory of the Czech Republic.

This group of people is often marginalized and faces several additional barriers to enter regular labour market. These include inadequate knowledge of Czech language, insufficient understanding of the Czech society, disregard to cultural norms and values, lack of knowledge of legal norms and legal system as such, which constitutes a barrier in orientation in their own rights. Because of their young age, they are especially vulnerable, they do face huge problems in securing sufficient financial income and thus easily become victims of crime, labour exploitation, trafficking, enslavement, debt entrapment and social exclusion in general. Further migrants from new EU member states in Eastern Europe are favourite victims of traffickers for labour exploitation, recently due to their right to free movement and free residence after tightening the rules for employment of foreigners from third countries in the course of the economic crises.

Main objective of the project

The short term objective is to activate the target group and through project activities to offer to young migrants concrete assistance, and consequently to prevent them to fall in social exclusion and grey economy. Apart from that, a number of clients will get better qualified for labour integration and some will be facilitated to return home with effective reintegration help in country of return.

The long term objective is to enable SOZE to monitor, gather and analyse the main legal issues that migrants have to face. Those issues shall be summoned up and analysed in Legal Analysis with description of effectiveness of concrete legal solution, if legal order provides any. That enables to disseminate the valuable gained know-how among stakeholders, and will help to draw state´s attention to absent policy or unsatisfactory legislature, what in long term outputs making any other future work with this target group easier.

Geography and duration of project

The project is realised since September 2013 till end of august 2015 in the whole area of Moravian region of the Czech Republic, while the core activities takes place in SOZE branch offices in Brno and Olomouc, where the project staff is seated. The social worker and the lawyer travel around the whole Moravian Region, that including South Moravian, Olomouc, Zlín, Moravian-Silesian Region as well as Highlands Region. Activity voluntary returns and reintegrations cover the whole Czech Republic with cooperation with International Organization for Migration.

Project activities

Social coaching

The activity is carried out by the social worker whose responsibility is to raise awareness of the target group about the project, to draft out the individual timetable plan for each client, to assist in writing CV, motivation letters, validation of foreign documents, contacting concrete employers etc. Main objective of this activity is to enable young migrants to deal for themselves, raise their self-confidence, become independent personality and in the end become employed.

The activity is carried out every single working day during the whole project period in Brno, and one working day per week in SOZE office in Olomouc. Social worker assists to clients also out of office, especially in social departments, immigration office and other institutions if needed.

Legal counselling

Legal counselling is carried out by the lawyer who is providing legal consultations. General goal of this activity is to provide clients legal assistance to gain for them factual access to their legal rights and to overcome negative setbacks leading to the social marginalisation of the clients.

Legal counselling is provided in SOZE office in Brno four days a week, one day a week in SOZE office in Olomouc. Upon agreed appointment (appointed by the social worker) the lawyer can provide counselling directly in the foreign communities on project territory (Moravian region of the Czech Republic). Allocation of the legal counselling, similarly to the allocation of the social coaching is up to the allocation of the target group among those two cities.

Requalification courses

This activity is offered to the clients chosen according to certain criteria:

a) Personal criteria: knowledge of language, abilities, personal skills, age, length of stay in CzechRepublic, vulnerability;

b) Factual criteria: actual situation at the local labour market, advantage but not essential is preliminary approval of concrete employer. A link should be established between new labour skills gained by the requalification and concrete job vacancy or interest of concrete employer.

In the frame of this activity the 50 requalification courses will be provided and SOZE is going to cover 90% of requalification costs.

The essential part of the activity lies on negotiations with requalification courses providers, consulting the clients, assessing and evaluating their individual plans drafted by the social worker, consulting the social worker in the matter of client´s labour assertion.

Vložit dokument kritéria pro schválení RK

Jobs to try – paid internship through direct financial support to the employer

Jobs to try are naturally following up requalification courses although
it’s not a condition of utilising this activity. Intense cooperation with
client and contracting of the potential employers is an essential condition prior
to the factual materialisation of the “jobs to try” tool. The jobs to try will
naturally take place at the workplace of employer. General goal of this
activity is to use a new innovative labour tool to overcome employer’s initial
scepticism and to promote better labour integration of the target group and to
provide a real chance of employment using new labour tool for 45 clients during the project time period. Project will cover financial cost of jobs to try for
three months..

Courses of proficient Czech language

SOZE provides 20 courses during project period. Each course includes 100
hour of lessons and have maximum 10 students in one group. Frequency of the
course is 4 hours a week so every course lasts for 25 weeks. Courses are focusing primarily on proficient labour language with regard to the needs of labour integration. The social-cultural courses will also be taught in frame of this activity. Courses are held primarily in the cities of Brno and Olomouc, but upon interest among the clients, can be materialised also in other region cities (Zlín, Ostrava). The activity outcome should be the exam at the officially recognised level, according to the state compulsory Czech language standards, including A-1 level exam, which is an inevitable legal condition to obtain permanent residency permission.  The activity gives an option to pass the
language exam in three independent levels, A1- B1¨.

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Accommodation in asylum house

This activity is supposed to cover the situations of the most intensive vulnerability of youths. Clients being in situation of social exclusion and being homeless will have possibility to be accommodated in SOZE asylum house for period of three months. General goal is to prevent homelessness in the most serious cases of social vulnerability of migrants. SOZE will provide asylum housing for max. 3 months to 30 clients, during the first 21 month of project period.

Vložit fotku azyláku.

Reintegration through voluntary return programme

Voluntary return with provided reintegration help is the best way of foreigner´s departure from the country, when his/her residency or social situation became unsustainable or unbearable.  The activity should provide possibility of decent return including purchase of travel tickets, and especially with reintegration help such as assistance in starting business in country of return, assistance in looking for job in country of return, requalification course, purchase of expensive tools or just financial contribution for initial living costs.

General goal of activity is to provide social vulnerable migrants with possibility of voluntary return, if their integration has failed and to provide individual reintegration assistance to 30 clients during the project time period

Clients are provided with explanation on the advantages and disadvantages of voluntary return. They are informed on financial limit of reintegration help and basic conditions of its materialisation. Project manager will than draft out labour skills profile of client who is going to be interviewed on his preferences on financial income generating activity in the country of return. Statement of client is going to be made as subject of analysis by project manager and contemplate with labour skills profile and reports on economic and social situation in country of the return