Guidelife Project WP4 National Report Spain

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Guidelife ProjectWP4National ReportSpain

• Project Number 2006-SE/06/B/F/PP-161004

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1. Methodology

• 8 semi-structured interviews to migrant and Roma
  women living in the province of Barcelona.
• Countries of origin Equador, Colombia,
  Argentina, Romania, Morocco and Senegal.
• From 29 to 45 years old.
• All levels of education present.
• Labour situation inactive, unemployed, full-time
  work, work in irregular economy.
• 5 semi-structured interviews to guidance and
  counsellors professionals.
• 1 focus group with experts.

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2. Main obstacles for migrant women in accessing
life-long learning (I)

• Concerning administrative restrictions
• Access to public life-long learning courses only
  possible for women with work permit.
• Difficulties in obtaining the official
  acknowledgment of educational degrees. Emotional,
  economic and ocupation consequences.
• Concerning quidance counsellors
• Information given not always adapted to their
  specific motivations, skills and profile.
• Services for accompanying women in whole process
  are needed.
• Lack of sensibility to cultural differences in
  learning centres.

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2. Main obstacles for migrant women in accessing
life-long learning (II)

• 3. Concerning migrant women themselves
• Lack of knowledge of the language of the host
  country.
• Low academic level and illiteracy.
• Lack of knowledge on the reality of the labour
  market and importance of learning for better job
  opportunities. Urgency.
• Lack of time for accessing to any course if they
  have family responsibilities.
• Length of the courses.
• Changes of roles for women.
• 4. Concerning the society of the host country
• Labour market does not value non official
  learning programmes.
• Prejudices and discrimination against migrant
  women in learning area.

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3. Main obstacles for Roma women in accessing
life-long learning

• Concerning Roma women themselves
• Code of ethics and control of the family and
  comunity in the Roma culture. Dissuasion. Cost
  for deviation very high.
• Access to life-long learning is seen as necessary
  once they have entered to the labour market.
• Time investment in life-long learning seen as an
  obstacle. Role of women in Roma culture.
• Concerning the Administration and society
• Stereotypes of society about Roma culture.
  Effects on women.
• Lack of intercultural perspective in learning
  system and centres. Difficulties of
  understanding.

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4. Participation of migrant and Roma women in
life-long learning and opinion

• Positive opinion on the courses taken.
• 2. Roma women participate to a lesser extent.
• 3. Examples of courses being taken basic
  computing, Catalan and Spanish language, cook,
  hair-dresser, first aids, cultural mediation,
  social integration, gender violence, etc.

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5. Main difficulties for guidance and counsellor
sector in guiding immigrant women

• The legal situation of women (legal or illegal)
  makes difficult the guidance task.
• Slowness for the official validation of
  educational degrees studied in the countries of
  origin. Non correspondance between educational
  level and job possibilities.
• Lack of knowledge on different cultures, social
  codes, religious aspects. Misunderstandings.
  Communication issues.

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6. Main difficulties for guidance and counsellor
sector in guiding Roma women

• The lack of knowledge of Roma culture and its
  cultural codes, which impede a proper
  intervention. Stereotypes are latent in
  professionals.
• Roma women do not have a professional project
  beforehand, which makes difficult to insist on
  life-long learning.
• Age of women.

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7. Actions that would overcome the barriers
experience by migrant and Roma women (I)

• To change the administrative and legal rules.
  Access to life-long learnings and validations.
• To review the offer of life-long learning courses
  in order to adapt them to the needs of labour
  market and motivation and needs of women. Courses
  more flexible, diverse, breaking stereotypes.
• To invest more resources in improvement of family
  and professional life balance.
• To raise awareness on the intercultural reality.
• To improve the knowledge of guidance sector on
  migration processes and implications.

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7. Actions that would overcome the barriers
experience by migrant and Roma women (II)

• To offer more oportunities to learn reading and
  writing.
• To design and implement reception plans to offer
  more and better information to both guidance
  sector and migrants.
• To improve the knowledge on the Roma culture.
• To work with Roma women the change of perception
  that learning does not mean possibilities of
  getting a job.

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8. Training needs for the guidance sector for
improving the counselling and guidance to migrant
and Roma women

• The improvement of knowledge of guidance
  professionals relating to cultural diversity
  within migratory groups.
• Training to guidance professionals should
  emphasize more the different phases of a
  migratory process.
• A better knowledge of legal areas relating to
  immigration.
• Cultural codes of Roma women.

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9. Training available to guidance professionals

• Low levels of knowledge of the training available
  on this field. They know courses on labour
  orientation, migration and mediation but claim
  that are too general and not focused on the
  practice.

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10. Training received by guidance professionals
and their opinion

• Positive opinion in general, though the courses
  in general do not go into depth in the subjects
  of study.
• Public Administration should be more involved in
  the training, the available offer and its quality.

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11. Participation in civic life of Roma and
migrant women

• Active in society.
• However, most of them do not participate in
  associations or community activism. Migrant women
  participate in educative and migrant
  associations.

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THANK YOU VERY MUCH! Mar Camarasa