The Organization

Verein Multikulturell – Tyrolean Integration Center is a non-governmental non-profit organisation founded in 1993. The organization’s main objectives are to promote professional, social and cultural inclusion of migrants and it aims to enhance intercultural dialogue and education.

The organisation’s activities are organised in close collaboration with international and national partners, like the Tyrolean Government and other State institutions like the Chamber of Commerce, job centers, schools and other providers of education, as well as different social organizations and societies also on European levels.

Verein Multikulturell is providing activities and services like:

• multilingual family counselling and psychotherapy
• multilingual education/career guidance for young migrants and their parents, also adults and asylum seekers
• job application training and interview coaching
• interactive language and computer classes for adults and youngsters
• intercultural/diversity seminars and training courses for multipliers
• media workstation (radio, film, photography & creative writing workshops)
• international EU projects
• intercultural events

Our Role in the VAI project

Verein Multikulturell will carry out the research in the Austrian context and will contribute in testing the guides and manuals created by “4 Elements” and giving feedback. In the framework of the pilot activities we will train trainers from voluntary organizations and volunteers with migrant background.

Our Expectations

The central recurrent theme of this project will be the motivation of volunteers and the question of how are treated and managed individual expectations in an organizational context. Volunteering is a very subjective term based on different individual interests and expectations. It is important for people to understand how volunteers play their own roles and how they relate to refugees. The accompanying study will help to examine factors that generally lead to empathy with refugees.

The results will be very exciting, because the study asks why people volunteer for refugees and asylum seekers and why they spend time and effort to support them. Also, it will be asked for the motives and in which context volunteers want to help refugees – with arrival, integration and the engagement with the host society.

The outcome of the VAI project can be both, an instrument and an indicator of integration. Many EU Member States have already recognized the potential of volunteering as an integration tool and are endeavoring to introduce measures to encourage volunteering by migrants. Migration, integration and volunteering are subject to strong public and political debate in Europe. The VAI project aims to link these debates with the question “How to make better use of volunteering among migrants to increase the participation of third-country nationals in society”. We want to support this process.

Contact Details

Verein Multikulturell
Andreas Hofer Straße 46
Innsbruck 6020
Austria

Visit the homepage of Verein Multikulturell