The second newsletter of the VIM project summarises the findings of the comprehensive research activities in terms of main barriers for migrants to access national healthcare services and their training needs.
Please download the newsletter here.
Good practice examples
In addition to the interviews the VIM partners also searched for good practice examples on existing health education projects and resources for migrants and other disadvantaged groups.
We felt that we could learn something from these examples that could be transferable to the VIM learning units and activities that we are to develop in the next months. Specific points of interests that we were looking for were:
Results of interviews
The VIM partners have carried out 61 interviews with educational and social professionals in the six partner countries. The aim was to define the learning needs of migrant adults in terms of most relevant health education topics. These will be taken as the basis for developing small learning units and activities that can be embedded in training offers addressing refugees and migrants. Continue reading “Results of interviews”
Interviews with educational and social professionals
Each partner is currently scheduling qualitative interviews with educational and social professionals. The aim is to find out the learning needs of migrant adults in terms of health and healthy lifestyle, most relevant health education topics and suitable methodological approaches that are likely to succeed with hard-to-reach target groups.
If you are interested to get involved and give an interview, please address one of the VIM partners.
Kick-off meeting in Göttingen
On 11./12. December 2017 the VIM partners met in Göttingen for the kick-off meeting. The main purpose of the meeting was to get to know to each other and to plan in detail the first project activities.
The partners discussed in detail the approach of the stocktaking and needs analysis phase and brainstormed possible topics for the micro-learning units that will be developed. Apart from healthy lifestyle related topics also topics such as home sickness, depression, intercultural reflection about body and health as well as trustbuilding in the healthcare system of the host country were listed. Currently the long list of possible topics is being clustered and will be further consolidated by means of expert interviews in the partner countries.
VIM – What does it stand for?
VIM stands for Vitality Interventions for Migrants and builds on the experience gained in “Health Box”, a very successful LLP-funded project (www.healthbox.eu). Health Box developed micro-learning units on crucial healthy-lifestyle topics that were integrated in other training contexts (e.g. labour market training). This approach shall now be transferred to the target group of refugees and migrants.
Staying in good health, adopting healthy life styles and being informed about the health system of the host country as well as having confidence to make use of it are pre-requisites of successful integration of refugees and newly arrived migrants.