Integration 
Social Integration
Wednesday, 15 September 2010
Indicators of social integration can include migrants' interaction with family, people from their country of origin, other migrants and Irish people, as well as barriers to such interaction.
September 2011:
The Pathways to Parental Leadership project is an initiative of the ICI, funded by the Network of European Foundations for Innovative Cooperation through the European Programme for Integration and Migration. The project aims to foster migrant parents’ involvement in the school lives of their children. The overall objective of the project is to improve the quality of the education of migrant children and ultimately to strengthen the voice of migrants in the community. The toolkit is being aimed at schools and gives them advice on how to encourage parental involvement and meet the needs of a diverse society. It has been piloted in five schools around the Dublin area and was launched on 13th September 2011.
Please click here to view and download the Pathways to Parental Leadership Toolkit.
Please click here to view and download the Supplemental Materials for the Toolkit.
Mentoring Project
The ICI has developed a mentoring programme to promote opportunities for social interaction between migrants who have recently arrived in the State and Irish citizens or migrants who are well-established here.
Businessman Bill Cullen, centre, launched the ICI's pilot Mentoring Programme in December 2008 with Programme Coordinator Itayi Viriri, Junyu Wang, ICI Chairperson John Cunningham and Viola Di Bucchianico.
The ICI undertook a pilot mentoring programme and has now developed a toolkit to assist other organisations to run similar programmes in their local areas.
The pilot programme, which ran from September 2008 until August 2009, established one-to-one relationships in which local people (Irish or well-established residents) voluntarily gave time to support and befriend a migrant who was either a new arrival or who was facing challenges in settling into life in Ireland. The two-way relationships between the mentor and mentee were based on trust and mutual gain with participants agreeing to contribute regular time to the programme.
The participants were fully supported by the ICI through the provision of relevant training, an induction and ongoing support. The programme was co-funded by Pobal, through the European Fund for the Integration of Third Country nationals.
The programme was subsequently rolled-out by NGOs in West Dublin, Tallaght, Limerick, Galway and Mallow.
For a copy of the Guide to Running a Mentoring Programme, in hardcopy or CD format, please contact This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Publication: Guide to Running a Mentoring Programme - December 2009
4Intercult
The ICI is the Irish partner in the EU-funded Grundtvig programme 4Intercult Project, which is identifying best practice in terms of service provision to migrants. The project aims to assist municipalities to develop intercultural strategies and to develop best practice responses for the provision of public services for migrants. It is being piloted in Viadana, a rural community in Lombardy, in Northern Italy, which has experienced significant growth in the number of migrant workers moving to the area in recent years. Other partners are the Municipality of Viadana, Bicocca University in Milan, and the European Council of Intercultural Education and Training.