21 July 2017

National Library’s new project will benefit from the experience of the Scandinavian countries in working with migrants

In light of global developments, increasing migration flows and issues relating to the social integration of foreign nationals, the Martynas Mažvydas National Library of Lithuania is launching a new project aimed at developing the competences of library staff in order to facilitate and promote intercultural and informational migrant education.

The project’s aim is to gain experience

The project ‘Intercultural and Informational Migrant Education: Development of Staff Competences’ will aim at learning from and adopting the good practices of the Scandinavian countries.  The representatives of the National Library and of the project partners – Vilnius District Adomas Mickevičius Public Library and Švenčionys District Municipality Public Library – will seek to gain knowledge about innovative methods used in working with immigrants and refugees and to use it in practice at the participating libraries. The project participants will learn to work with migrants and refugees and to effectively encourage them to engage in lifelong learning.  To achieve these goals, it is expected to develop guidelines for working with migrants for other Lithuanian libraries.

Expected impact of the project

The expected impact of the project is related to three recipient groups: direct participants of the project, the organizations they represent, and the project's target group, namely, migrants and refugees.

It is expected that the knowledge acquired by project’s participants will improve their understanding of the migrants’ background, and the new experience will allow them to successfully work with a socially sensitive target group new to Lithuanian libraries.  Moreover, it is expected that the project will promote deeper intercultural understanding among staff members and increase their racial and cultural awareness as well as improve their language skills.

After the completion of the project, the participating organizations will be able to work with a new target group and to provide it with information literacy education services in a targeted and purposeful manner.  It is also expected that the project will strengthen the network of organizations in cooperating on the issues related to informational integration of migrants and help establish contacts that would facilitate planning of other joint activities in the future.

The project's target group, namely migrants, will also directly benefit from the project.  Immigrants residing in the Vilnius region will receive new information literacy services which will lead to a better standard of life in social, economic, educational and cultural fields. It is expected that the new ideas will be disseminated among all libraries of the Vilnius region (in future all the remaining public libraries of Lithuania will also be included) to ensure that they reach the migrants and refugees of the entire region who will not only receive new services but also hopefully will experience a more open attitude to foreign nationals, a higher level of tolerance and a better cultural understanding.

The  project is funded by the Erasmus+ programme administered by the Education Exchanges Support Foundation. More information ›

We are happy that such activities are taking place under our roof and we wish best of luck to the project participants.