CoCoFe

Communicative Competency for Female Refugees on the Shop Floor: Improving communication skills in the workforce

Partners

  • Eurospeak Language Schools (United Kingdom) – coordinator
  • CSI CENTER FOR SOCIAL INNOVATION (Cyprus)
  • Learning for Integration (Finland)
  • SOLUTION: Solidarité & Inclusion (France)
  • FUNDACION DE TRABAJADORES DE LA SIDERURGIA INTEGRAL (Spain)

Partners during TPM in Barakaldo, Spain (July 2022)

Project description

This project is aimed towards increasing the communicative competence and language understanding of female refugees and forced migrants who are, according to the OECD, disadvantaged due to their (1) comparatively low-level of formative education, (2) their gender and (3) their ‘status’ as refugees in the local community in which they live and the businesses in which they work.

To mitigate this, the project’s objectives are to:

1. establish a self-sustaining collaborative digital learning website for female refugees, forced migrants (FRFM) and their work colleagues employed in factories who will act as language mentors;

2. develop a competency- and socio-cultural-based approach to language learning a language for the FRFMs and their co-worker mentors;

3. familiarise refugees and migrants with the working practices and culture of their new country of residence;

4. familiarise the FRFMs with informal register and the performative aspects of the local language focusing on aural and oral communication skills;

5. Encourage the development of their digital skills;

6. Encourage local employees and businesses who wish to improve their cultural awareness and help refugees integrate.

CoCoFe’s desired results are:

-To promote positive cultural practices amongst target communities;

-To encourage the social integration of newcomers within local communities;

-To provide more cultural, digital and language learning opportunities for migrants and refugees, and the local community via work colleague interaction;

-To collect best practices and create and improve upon procedures for a better and easier integration of the female migrant population, including the organization of language and ICT courses for women with a migrant background

To achieve the objectives, the project has created the following outputs:

  • An ‘open source’ website sustained by the target groups themselves using a free platform;
  • A self-published e-booklet to be written initially by the CoCoFe’s project team but updated and developed by the community themselves;
  • A corpus of workplace language with an emphasis on informal language used within the target languages and workplaces of our partner countries of Finland, France, Greece, Spain and the UK.
  • Onsite language classes where a refugee or migrant has a language partner;

CoCoFe learning resources

CoCoFe Companion Book and Mini-Dictionary are available here in French and English!

And the Mini-Dictionary is also available here in French and English.

Website and social media

To learn more about CoCoFe, please visit the project website and Facebook page:

CoCoFe project website

CoCoFe Facebook page

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