As of October 31, 2015, we have completed the implementation of a project dedicated to the development of intercultural assistants of SEA-liaison towards intercultural mediation. The intercultural assistants have thus had the opportunity to learn more about skills allowing them to negotiate and work within the community processes. Below, we would like to sum up the outputs of the project.
The project was implemented from 1. 2. 2015 to 31. 10. 2015 under the official title “New Challenge – from Intercultural Assistance to Intercultural Mediation”, Reg. No. CZ.2.17/2.1.00/37116. As was already mentioned, the subject of the project was the implementation of a programme for the target group consisting of accredited and active intercultural assistants who successfully completed retraining courses in this field and are active in Prague.
Apart from the fact that the intercultural assistants themselves have been trained, they also had the opportunity to work with the target group of Vietnamese clients in basically two areas. The first one was teaching Czech language courses from beginners to A1 level. A total of 32 students have attended the courses and 15 people successfully completed them. The clients of the project also had the possibility to use consultation services after completing the Czech language courses; they usually brought official correspondence for translation and they had the opportunity to ask brief indicative questions related to problems they would like to resolve. Besides these brief consultations, intercultural counselling was also being provided. 117 people participated in this activity and 57 of their cases have been resolved and closed. The topics addressed concerned mainly business, employment, and residency issues. As part of this activity, we have also developed a case report material in both Czech and Vietnamese which can serve for further education of new intercultural assistants. Some clients are returning to us up to now. In addition, seven other health-related seminars interpreted into Vietnamese were delivered to the clients at SEA-l.
The project also involved internal and external training in the following areas:
- Introduction to intercultural mediation
- Intercultural work
- Crisis intervention
- The role of the mediator
- Specifics of family mediation
- Social work
- Civics (new directions, approaches to officials, etc.)
- Teaching Czech for foreigners
- Teaching a foreign language for children
- Psychology
- Interpreting
- Fundamentals of law for mediators
- Facilitation in the process of controlled discussion
- A course for community interpreters
- Thai language course
The range of offered topics was therefore very wide. After the implementation of the project, we were addressed by people interested in other topics such as continuing education and supervisions in the field of crisis intervention, people interested in learning Chinese, cabin interpreting, etc.
Within the activities carried out as well as beyond them, some intercultural assistants were able to realize their practical training in SEA-l. This opportunity was at the end used by 6 people. Some were selected for three full-time positions: one in SEA-1, another one in the association Info-Dráček, and the last one in the association Slovo 21. These positions were terminated by the end of October 2015. However, all three assistants continue to cooperate with the above-mentioned organizations.
In addition to the mentioned activities and on the basis of our internal analysis, the cooperation with external entities has stimulated a development of new projects. The new SEA-l website project, the community family centre project, continuing education projects, etc. Some members of staff have already been involved in dealing with community cases as interpreters or facilitators, and even one mediation session has taken place. Some new cases have been accepted, including in cooperation with external experts.
We are delighted that this project has been supported.
The project is co-funded by the European Social Fund under the Operational Programme Prague – Adaptability. European Social Fund Prague and the EU – Investing in your future