The REBUILD project

REBUILD main objective is to improve migrants and refugees integration processes in Europe through the development of ICT-based solutions, aiming at enhancing the efficiency level in local authorities’ service provision and the immigrants’ quality of life. Actually, the starting point is the awareness about the gap between the supply of public services and the actual possibility of accessing them for immigrants and refugees.

This objective will be achieved through the realization of an application that may be used by immigrants and refugees to assure a better interaction among them and with public administrations and a more effective matching between the immigrants’ needs and the supply of services in the hosting countries.

The typologies of services being considered are based on set of rights of which the immigrants are entitled, but they are not limited to these:

• Access to education
• Residence permit
• Welfare services
• Access to accommodation
• Access to procedures for the recognition of professional skills
• Services for unaccompanied minors 
• Other services

Activities and Methodologies

In order to achieve the project objective, first of all, they will carry on an activity related to demographic data collection on the immigrants (in the respect of privacy protection) and on the activities of the public administrations.

This work will previously require the design of a model for data collection and a methodology shared by all the partners that will do the interviews. In each one of the involved countries (Italy, Greece and Spain), the respective NGOs, coordinated by UNINETTUNO and CIDAS, will manage 50 personal interviews selecting a representative sample of users, taking into account geographical origin, religion, gender and age and that will be identified in two main groups: immigrants included into second-hosting programs, that will keep on benefitting from the supporting services and immigrants who have just left the hosting programs.

A survey will also be made at the public administration with at least 20 interviews in each one of the 3 countries.

At the end of this phase of data collection, 3 co-creation seminars will be organized in Italy, Spain and Greece, in which the scenarios and requirements that the REBUILD toolbox must provide, starting from the available good practices, from detected immigrants’ needs, from the on-going processes at the public administrations, from the current social and cultural barriers and from the questions related to personal data protection.

The seminars, that will last two days and that will be attended by 30 people from outside the consortium (immigrants, public administrations officers), will represent an element of innovation and the partners attending as experts as well as facilitators will coordinate the activities and organize their work on the basis of range of techniques that will lead to the design of a draft for the toolbox. It is also envisaged the participation of experts from various scientific sectors: from ICT to human and social sciences, besides stakeholders from outside the partnership.

The data being collected through the interviews to the immigrants and the results gained during the seminars will be required to carry on the toolbox design activities: in fact, they will realize a tool to match the needs expressed by the immigrants and the skills identified in the information collection phase, with the needs at local level and the services supplied by the administrations. This matching represents one of the main components to guide the immigrants. The responsibility of such activity will be entrusted to the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM), a Spanish technical university. They will prepare a report with this data processing that will be useful also to the public administrations as a basis for establishing the policies to be adopted as regards immigrants and refugees.

At the same time, under the supervision of CERTH (a Greek organization working in the field of information and communication technologies), they will work at the design of a digital companion that will act a communication interface between immigrants and the public administration, in order to supply the immigrants information checked against the various public services available (10 at least).

Therefore, the companion will be direct communication means with the immigrants and a guidance tool. The companion will envisage communication means aimed at overcoming linguistic barriers even through the use of clips and pictograms.

It will be responsible also for supplying information aimed at enhancing the public perception of immigration for any concerned third party. In order to do so, it will automatically create info-graphics based on the previous questions and on existing data. 

Once these tools are realized, under the supervision of UNESCO, the REBUILD forms will be tested on a group of selected users, meant as final users (immigrants) as well as service suppliers (public administrations). Therefore, the test will be made on real users in order to adopt an interactive approach enabling for the starting of feedback loops. At the beginning, this first test will be carried on during small-scale sessions. It is envisaged a minimum of three tests involving 30 units at least from both users’ groups. The results will be needed to supply feedbacks that will be useful to enhance the toolbox.

At this point, there will be a pilot phase, during the project final phase (October 2021) through the implementation of the completed version of the system in the 3 countries involved. The pilot project will involve 100 users at least from the 3 countries and from both target groups (immigrants and public administrations) that will be selected by the project partners.

The results of the pilot project will help validate the application on the overall. Actually, the objective will also be to collect information to validate the application: all modules of the Digital Companion will be assessed in terms of accessibility and usability by both users’ groups.

In addition, the project envisages three types of activities that will develop along its whole lifespan.

1. From one hand, under the supervision of MDAT, the activity of communication and dissemination of the results further to the preparation of a strategic plan and of range of activities including the realization of a website, the writing of newspaper articles and press releases, the exploitation of social media, the organization of events devoted to the project (seminars, conferences, focus groups) and the identification of events already scheduled in which framework to promote it.
2. On the other hand, a range of activities aimed at assuring the respect of privacy in the activity of data collection and processing, under the supervision of Brussels’ VUB. During all these phases there will be a continuous monitoring of the compliance with the requirements in order to assure that the designed solution respects and reflects, as far as possible, the fundamental rights of the European framework (in particular, the right to personal data protection and the right to privacy).
3. During the whole project lifespan they will carry on activities aimed at mapping the socio-economic and political impact on the two categories of interested stakeholders: immigrants and public administrations. This activity will be supervised by the DEN Institute, that, firstly, will have to develop a methodology and then organize a seminar to help partners understand this methodology. They will identify 3 areas in which they will assess the impact and the development of at least 18 qualitative and quantitative indicators to map the impacts on the project. They mean to involved at least 100 immigrants and 3 local authorities.

In order to support the project long-term results, they will develop a sustainability plan showing the strategy and the actions to be taken in the following three years after the project completion. They will produce single exploitation plans for each partner beside a wide-ranging strategy that will rely on the opportunities for public-private partnerships and on the participation to public bids.