Maximizing Migrants contribution to society

ended

The MAX project will change public attitudes to migrants not primarily by seeking to convince rationally on the basis of facts and statistics, but by acting on emotion through the telling of personal stories and creating face-to-face encounters between indigenes and newcomers. It will: Conduct desk research and survey local grassroots actors to collect and analyse information on (a) the impact of migrant populations in Europe; and (b) opinions, fears and prejudices regarding migrants in Europe; Identify, from both local and Europe-wide sources, a variety of ‘success stories’ of achievement and contribution to Europe’s society, economy and culture by migrants (through EU-level working groups); Articulate the data on facts and opinions with the success stories to create a set of messages which will be persuasive in improving the public image of migrants in Europe; Create a database of good and bad practice (success and failures in migrant integration), press clippings and media monitoring; Train media professionals based on the solutions journalism paradigm; Deliver the stories and their messages through various channels: website and social media, press, holding of media-friendly award ceremonies, organisation of 15 ‘diversity days’ fora, and hold a final European Diversity Festival and conference. Altogether with a minimum estimation of 1500 participants. The project involves 20 partners, 15 local organisations from 12 EU Member States (BE, CZ, DE, EE, EL, ES, FR, HU, IT, NL, PL and SE) as well as five EU-level partners. It thus draws on a wide variety of local first-hand experiences of migrants and their host communities, from three very contrasting regions of the EU: northern industrial/commercial, southern rural and central-eastern European. It will process the life stories and messages based in these local experiences in the light of a pan-European perspective which can be fed back to communities across the EU.