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VIM

VIM – Vitality Interventions for Migrants

VIM aims at helping adult educators to support migrants improve their health as well as encourage them to use the health system of their host country.

Grant Agreement Number: 2017-1-DE02-KA204-004250

Funded by: Erasmus+        Duration: 11/2017 – 10/2019   


Challenge

In the light of the sharply increased wave of refugees and migrants coming to Europe the past years, the issue of migrant health is one that needs to be tackled transnationally.

Well-being, poverty, employment and legal status are factors that have crucial impact on the health of refugee immigrants as well as on the exertion of their right to access quality healthcare. Particularly, in the case of women, the cultural and social obstacles to a healthy life are even bigger as they face more pronounced exclusion risks because of simultaneous gender, racial and class discrimination.

In the existing integration programmes there is clearly a lack of consideration of the specific challenges migrants face with regard to health issues and a lack of target health information.

Innovation

By producing educational materials – tailored to the specific needs of these target groups and taking into account cultural differences and limited or missing language competencies – VIM aims at helping adult educators to support migrants improve their health as well as encourage them to use the health system of their host country.

Action

A research report, based on interviews with educational and social professionals and collection of good practices, addressed the challenges, problems, training needs, health related aspects etc. in each participating country and at European level. The report also identified the materials and training units, which had to be developed.

Read the report here.

A flexible toolbox with small, ready-to-use health education units was developed, which will help adult educators to support migrants to stay in good health, adopt healthy lifestyles and be informed about the health system of the host country as well as build confidence to make full use of it. Throughout the materials, strong emphasis is placed on sensitive areas like gender and religion.

An information and educational resource hub for adult educators and other professionals involved in health education of migrants was developed. This platform facilitates the exchange and transfer of experience and good practices and promotes the creation of new learner generated contents.

Read the Guidelines here.
https://vimhub.dieberater.com/

In national workshops that took place in the participating countries, adult educators were inducted and familiarized with the VIM approach. These educators used the small training units in their educational practice and gave feedback, providing useful insights regarding the quality of the products.

The educational guidelines supplement the VIM training material on the Hub. They served as a source of inspiration for trainers to include health-related topics in their courses, without losing sight of the different cultural conceptions of body and health and sensitive factors in migrant health education such as religion and gender.

Read the Guidelines here.

European Commission’s support for the production of this content does not constitute an endorsement of the contents, which reflect the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

Project Partners

KMOP – Social Action and Innovation Centre
BUPNET logo
BUPNET (Germany – Project Coordinator)
Die Berater  (Austria)
CESIE  (Italy)
SOSU AARHUS (Denmark)
Magenta Consultoria Projects S.L.U (Spain)

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