Multiplier Event 2 – Master 9-Conversations

Tools and means to train the facilitator

Facilitating Migrant Entrepreneurship

Supporting refugees and migrants to start their own business

The second multiplier event was organised from Lithuania, as an international event on Tuesday the 14.th of March 2023. The conference was moved from Norway to Lithuania. The conference had more than 70 participants.

The aim for the event was:

To learn from the supporting organisations in the Jonava district
To learn from Lithuanian migrants that has started their own business
To present some of the work done in Mastering 9 Conversations
To have feedback of what we are doing
To establish contact for further collaboration

The target group of the event was:

Lithuanian and European authorities
Support organisations for Migrant / refugees
The project team

The event was divided into several parts:

An overview of the refugee and migrant situation in Lithuania
An overall presentation of the project
Presentation of the enhanced 9 Conversation programme (IO-1 to IO-4)
Life stories from three migrants that have started their own business in Lithuania

Hosteses

Julita Pigulevičienė and Valentina Demidenko.

Julita Pigulevičienė from the Social Project Institute (right) together with Valentina Demidenko from Jonava Social Service Center did a great job to organize and host the Multiplier event.

Welcome from the authorities

All the participants were welcomed by Birutė Gailienė – deputy mayor of Jonava, and Lineta Jakimavičienė – deputy director of the city administration. Congratulatory words and interest in the project were expressed by the Refugees integration experts from the Lithuanian Ministry of Social Security and Labor – Aistė Gerikaitė-Šūkienė, Laura Perevičiūtė and the deputy director of the Lithuanian Department of Social Services Supervision – Eglė Kuisienė and Živilė Šukytė-Kraskauskienė.

The local TV covered the event

The event was recorded and presented on local TV AVVA news. Link to the record (in Lithuanian, starting from the minute 4:05): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xM5-XlGWSpY.

Project presentations

Thorleif Hjeltnes, the project manager, from the research foundation TISIP, gave a short introduction of the aims and the tasks in the Mastering 9 conversation project.

Bjørn Klefstad from NTNU presented the LowTech LMS to be used in the project, while Marco Temeprini on Teams from University of Rome introduced all the support funcions, like handbooks, badges and pedagogical approches in the project.

Anne Fox introduced to the participants what it takes to give the 9 Conversations course, and how people from the Refugee Support Organisations will learn how to set up and give the course by doing the train the facilitator course, and what templates and handbooks that are available.

Meals

During the conference we could enjoy a lot of nice food all prepared by the refugees, both food from Ukraine as well as arabic food.

Refugee women from Ukraine: Olha Kunytska and Nataliia Bondarchuk.

Migrants / Refugees tell their stories

Natalia Didenko, Ukrainian artist, coacher and entrepreneur.

Gubani Alchastova, a refugee woman from Chechnya.

Oksana Mentkevich, a refugee from the Ukrainian, an employee of the Jonava Social services Center.
And translator from Social Projects Institute – Rasa Dambrauskienė.

Yana Vovk, a refugee from the Ukrainian, an employee of the Jonava Social services center.

Andulrazzak Awf, a refugee from Syria, entrepreneur and an employee of Jonava social services center.

Refugee supporting organisations

Erika Santangeli and Ilaria Signoriello from CReA Association.

Viktor Ostrovnoj, Head of the Asylum and Migration Program of the Lithuanian Red Cross Society.

Valentina Demidenko presented the work of the Jonava Social Service Center.

Feedback from the event

Aušrinė Balkaitytė made a drawing that summarizes the whole event, and interconnections between all the elements in the projects 9 Conversations as well as Mastering 9 Conversations – very impressive, visualization like a Mind map using pencil and pen. A lot of details without any faults!

Statements from some of the participants

The opinion of a specialist from the Lithuanian Employment Service

“It is very interesting conference. I would like to get acquainted with the M9C products when they are finished. Our organization is responsible for the integration of refugees into the labor market, so we are really interested. We would like to train our specialist who works with refugees, so that after she could apply this method in his work” (Kristina Kašauskienė)

The opinion of an employee of the Lithuanian Red Cross Society

“In our NGO I work in with the employment of refugees and I think that some of them could use the M9C project tool to create their own business… For me, as for the specialist, it also would be good to receive M9C training. I think it would be really useful…” (Viktor Ostrovnoj)