ProInteCra – Networking Berlin

Demand

The Berlin skilled crafts trade, with its labour and integration potential, offers good career prospects for immigrants. The experiences, especially from the development partnership “ProInteCra” sub-projects show that immigrants often know too little about skilled crafts.

Objectives and Implementation

“Networking Berlin” aimed to inform immigrants about initial and continuing vocational education and training opportunities in the skilled trade, thus opening trade up to them as a field of work.

Flyers in 10 languages and information material were developed for the guidance of careers advisors and visits to exhibitions and excursions to institutions of skilled crafts and company visits were conducted, but at the heart of the project were the numerous information events. With the support from the guilds, many craftsmen and craftswomen with a migrant background could be acquired. They have put themselves forward as mentors for their professions in the MSO and are a point of contact. People such as a Polish car mechanic, a Turkish optician, a Japanese confectioner, a Kazakh dentist and a Vietnamese tailor have all successfully gone down the route of professional integration in the trade.

Under the overall responsibility of BGZ as project coordinator, a strategic council was formed; a council which continued to exist even beyond the end of the project. The members were, among others, representatives of migrant organisations, the Berlin Senate, the Turkish Embassy, the Employment Agency Berlin-Mitte and the welfare department Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg.

Sustainability

Networking has established networks that are still active, e.g. in the campaign “Berlin’s economy needs you!” Furthermore, the materials developed in the project have lost none of their relevance. The multiplier concept tested in the project has proven itself and has continued to be used by the BGZ e.g. in the projects “Learning community” and “PROTECT”.

Material