“ENABLE: Self-learning for Arab refugee children” was a European project of the University of Education Schwäbisch Gmünd (Germany), the NGO Back on Track Syria e.V. in Berlin, University of Calabria (Italy), University in Gävle (Sweden) and the Muğla Sitki Kocman University (Turkey). The project aimed at the better integration of refugee children in local school contexts by directly working with Arab mother-tongue educators. The objective was to offer those educators a training so they can support children in developing a positive self-concept, a positive and self-organized learning attitude and tackle subjects such as exclusion, stereotypization and the effect of trauma. Another objective was to further educate and professionalize mother-tongue trainers and teachers but also learn from their experiences on the ground. Since the situation in different countries in Europe is very diverse, the partner consortium gathered and exchanged experience in diverse formalized and non-formalized school and integration contexts, thereby targeting a variety of different educators and practitioners in schools, NGOs, Asylum institutions and universities.During the project, four transnational trainings in Berlin (Germany), Calabria (Italy), Gävle (Sweden) and Muğla (Turkey) were conducted, reaching a total number of 66 local mother-tongue trainers who migrated from Syria, Algeria, Libya, Iraq and Yemen who migrated and now worked as teachers, teacher assistants, voluntary mentors, cultural mediators and students with refugee children in Germany, Sweden, Italy and Turkey. Moreover the partner representatives took part in the training by sharing their knowledge and learning from other settings in the partner countries.Based on this in-dense on the ground experience, the ENABLE partner consortium developed and evaluated a highly accessible training concept for Arab mother-tongue educators as well as for other practitioners in an iterative way, consisting of seven modules in English and Arabic. This training was further transformed into a training platform (www.enable-tamkin.com/training-platform) where tutors worldwide can learn with it in English and Arabic about self-learning, the concept of self-efficacy and motivation, inclusion and exclusion dynamics in the classroom and trauma in refugee contexts. A further element of the project, which lasted from 2017 to 2019, was the implementation of six multiplier events (two in Berlin, one in Calabria, two in Sweden, one in Muğla) reaching a wide variety of local and international participants working in the field of education and integration in addition to the project partners' network. The project results have also been disseminated at more than 25 international and national conferences and seminars and through four publications to an audience of researchers, teachers, pedagogues, teacher students (further publications are already in the making).The project has given the often underrepresented and unprivileged group of Arab mother-tongue teachers in their new societies an initial professionalization and visibility in the public discourse. Moreover, mother-tongue trainers highly benefited from the trainings by better understanding the situation of refugee children, better knowing how to deal with children in different situations and becoming a better learning mentor. The children profited from teachers that understood better their situation and could better become positive learning mentors. Finally, Enable managed to open up an intensive knowledge exchange about the integration in schools, the Asylum systems and the role mother-tongue educators in diverse European contexts.

The project “PARENTable – communicating with parents of newly migrated children” is a transnational project together with (mediating) educators and parents in order to implement new communication formats and trainings that increase mutual understanding and build communication bridges between school facilities and families. The aim of the project is (1) to gain and share knowledge about best-practice communication in Germany, Sweden, Italy and Turkey where educators and parents can exchange their views and (2) to develop an inclusive training concept for both educators and parents in order to better support newly migrated children between new school contexts and families. Parents can thus gain a deeper understanding of the challenges their children face and at the same time, they can also make their perspectives and needs heard at school. The concept of PARENTable is to support newly migrated children in a holistic approach considering their parents as one of the most important pillars for their successful course of education. The results of the Europe wide conducted interviews will be edited and published as handbook. The training concept will be distributed as a manual as well as further developed into an e-learning course. The target groups of this project are educators and parents of newly migrated children aged 9-15 in Europe which will be gathered in this project.PARENTable will provide concrete guidance material (handbook) based on interviews and hold transnational trainings in five different settings in Germany, Sweden, Italy and Turkey. The handbook will contain in-depth perspectives of parents and educators before, during and after trainings by conducting focus groups interviews. The transnational training activities will be composed equally with 7 parents and 7 educators and will consist of modules such as identities/self-esteem, supportive parenting, multilingualism, communication methods between school/parents and transnational families. These modules will be developed, re-evaluated and optimized by the transnational partner consortium in close accordance to this target groups during the project duration. In order to have a wide impact, we attempt to work with educators that play a mediating role between newly migrated parents and schools and are critical for building communication bridges. Educators targeted during PARENTable will be mother-tongue tutors, mother-tongue cultural mediators that accompany newly arrived minor pupils, school counselors as well as teacher students that assist in intercultural school settings. Our developed training and guidance material later will be promoted for teachers’ education all over Europe.Regarding parents of newly migrated children, we will gather parents who have an impact in their communities, but also who feel insecure and in need of assistance when it comes to supporting their children in new school contexts. National and local integration politics are often focused on the immediate incorporation of newly arrived children into national schooling systems. However, educators and other actors within the school system mostly lack information about children’s family situation and their personal and educational histories. Besides, it is difficult to reach out to parents who don’t speak the local language and lack trust in school authorities. Parents on the other hand don’t have access to knowledge about e.g. multilingualism and children’s identity formations in new settings. They might also be under immense psychological stress which prevents them from playing a positive role in supporting their children. Being themselves in unstable positions, they often put too much pressure on their children when it comes to school results. And finally, parents might feel discrimination and stereotypes from wider school contexts that prevents them from making their positions heard.PARENTable wants to tackle these issues by offering a platform of communicating and educating both educators and parents with a transnationally developed training that is closely adopted to the needs and experiences of families and educators all over Europe alike.