We are facing a humanitarian crisis of historic proportions. It is a problem that cannot be ignored and whose treatment will have future consequences. These consequences will depend on how different European countries will act and focus on the refugees’ phenomenon and their integration in different European countries.

 

The situation in Syria is particularly close to us, not only due to the horrors that take place there, but also due to the close relationship that unites the VEITH Foundation and more specifically the doctors Daniel and Evelyn Veith to the region and its people.

 

The consequences of this crisis will depend on how different European countries will act and focus on the refugees’ phenomenon and their integrationIt is obvious that a major social effort in order to promote their integration is needed, since it is not only about an economic perspective but there is also a strong cultural and religious component.

 

In order to address this issue in an appropriate way it is extremely important that at a government level, the possible benefits that may arise from this phenomenon are identified and enhanced.  And at an individual level, understanding and respect for those arriving must be cultivated so that social relations and interactions normalize soon and refugees are integrated and assimilated into the host country.

 

But for this to happen, a concrete integration method is necessary, opening the doors and providing the basic subsistence benefits is not enough. The received people must be prepared for a complete integration in the host society. Studies show that migrants only have access to low-level jobs due to the language barrier, but once they manage to overcome it, usually after many years, they manage to reach qualified or highly skilled jobs. Not only that, they are a revolving for the local economy, as they are an important consumer force, often underestimated.  The ones that have an academic preparation, have great intellectual potential which combined with the natives often results in innovation and once established they create a significant amount of jobs.

 

This process usually takes years and sometimes it isn't until the second generation that it materializes. Why? Because the integration is not guided by concrete actions or addressed in a specific manner.  Migration programs simply fulfill their basic function and they are left on their own, finding themselves in an unknown environment, sometimes honestly hostile. This causes mistrust among the local population and the one arriving, which is definitely not recommended in the geopolitical context in which we live.

 

Offering a preparation for a complete integration of migrants including language, social work, cultural sensitivity and integration instructions which does not represent a significantly higher cost per migrant and yet the potential benefits are exponentially greater.

 

A diligent and well channeled integration reduces the time during which the state needs to bear the cost, thereby compensating the short term increase.  But that is not all, if the refugee also receives proper training on how to function in the German labor culture or that of the host country and instructions on how to deal with cultural differences, the necessary time for a major integration in the economic sphere is reduced and if there is an economic stability, the social integration will be easier.

 

We will open a center in Berlin in order to apply our method of learning German to refugees coming from Syria and other countries at war in the areaIn the VEITH Foundation we intend to put our knowledge, experience and resources at the service of integration.  During the first phase of our initiative we will open a center in Berlin in order to apply our method of learning German (the fastest and most efficient nowadays) to refugees coming from Syria and other countries at war in the area.  Our R+D department, under the direction of Dr. Daniel Veith is already adapting the method to the Arabic language (considering that it is based on comparative grammar) and it is being adapted with the concrete idea of a rapid integration to the economic activity and respect towards the cultural and religious sensibilities of our guests.

 

But as we have mentioned several times, this is a huge task, and in order to make a significant difference we need all the possible help and above all, people who apply this method. This is why the second phase of the Palmira Project is to open a training center for teachers who are able to manage the teaching method in order to exponentially enhance its application to the hundreds of thousands of refugees seeking asylum in the European frontiers.

 

We have the will and the tools to make a difference, as long as more people, companies and institutions collaborate, this difference will be greater and everyone will enjoy its benefits, the native society who receives the new vital force and the thousands of refugees and their families that will finally have a fair chance to start over their lives.

 

The VEITH Foundation with the Palmira Project aims to develop a viable and sustainable solution for the linguistic, cultural and socio-economic integration of the current immigration wave mainly from Arabic-speaking countries, with the objective of implementing it to all the federal countries of Germany.

 

 

 

Integration through the language and the intercultural education

the key competences of the VEITH Foundation

 

 

The VEITH Foundation considers itself, in this ambitious and multidisciplinary integration project, as a privileged and competent manager, given that all actions initiated by it, up to date have been closely linked to the immigration issue and to the understanding between nations.  At the same time, its cooperating institutions can muster over 15 years of expertise in teaching and research of foreign languages and intercultural communication.

 

In an, up to date, unknown combination of high efficiency language teaching and a strong orientation to success with a behavioral training centered on the daily life and the working environmentOf immediate importance for the successful completion of the Palmira Project is the practical experience since 2012 with the foundation and administration of the Language training and labor culture Center “VEITH Institut" in Madrid, which was created during the peak of the exodus of Spaniards to Germany due to the economic crisis, in order to provide people who were concerned about their job prospects, a quick and honorable escape from long-term unemployment. In an, up to date, unknown combination of high efficiency language teaching and a strong orientation to success with a behavioral training centered on the daily life and the working environment, it was possible not only to lead migrants, in a record time of three to five months, to a high proficiency of the language, but also to sensitize their intercultural understanding of the peculiarities of the German cultural circle.

 

As part of several more voluminous group projects, with financial support from both the Spanish and the German States, a more detailed analysis of the encountered problems could be considered in order to verify through empirical studies, why the massive teaching actions for the German language have so far obtained little success (see the commendable but hardly productive efforts of the MobiPro-EU program) and how this method of linguistic and cultural "instantaneous integration", so indispensable in this moment in Germany can be optimized.

 

 

Exclusive language and integration course

for Arabic-German idiomatic pair

 

 

Given that the VEITH Foundation aims to provide a substantial contribution to the reformation and enhancement of western education, it has created within the group of language schools VEITH Institut, the autonomous research division VEITH R & D Agency, which addresses the development of innovative teaching concepts, objective evaluation and examination techniques and oriented in the actual level of linguistic knowledge, while internally supervising the quality. Following the pedagogical principle of the VEITH method, where language teaching can only guaranty immediate success if it is focused on a specific pair of languages (the starting one and the desired one), in the late summer of 2015, a division for Arabic was founded in Malta, where the VEITH R+D Agency is conceiving under the direction of Dr. Daniel Veith, developer of the VEITH Method, a German language course specifically focused on Arabic speakers.

 

Malta is the only European country with a native Arabic culture and language and therefore can be recognized as an experienced mediator between East and WestMalta presents itself as the ideal base for this project because it is the only European country with a native Arabic culture and language and therefore can be recognized as an experienced mediator between Eastern and Western countries. The intercultural competence is of utmost importance in the Palmira Project, and particularly there in developing the course contents related to the explanations and examples of the German culture, as most immigrants are from the Arab-Islamic world of the Middle East that is so different from the European culture and, therefore, their concept of the world and perception of values must be considered and respected.

 

 

Effective control of learning and certification strategy

oriented to the actual language level

 

 

The insufficient results of the conventional language tests that never reflect the actual linguistic level of the candidates are responsible for the numerous failures of immigrants in search of work in Germany, as well as the ruins of international projects of labor mediation on a large scale, often even funded by the state. This was very obvious lately in a consistent way regarding the Spanish emigration to Germany:  Countless Spaniards achieved an employment contract by a German company; they left their lives in Spain and emigrated to Germany, only to be dismissed soon after their arrival, because their actual level of language knowledge did not match the one reflected on their certificate. This grievous and unforgivable situation from a humanitarian point of view, led the VEITH Foundation to instruct its R+D Agency to do a study on the deficiencies of the established assessment methods of language certificates and develop its own language evaluation and certification model for A1, A2, B1 and B2 levels according to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages.

 

The advocated system of the VEITH Foundation is so effective because it does not diminish the individual skills assessment to one single test, but instead it elaborates for each student from the first day of class, a continuously updated learning profile and based on a standardized and structured homogeneous assessment system, which allows to assess the language skills in a more comprehensive way and guaranties a daily updated customization of the learning process and of the highest possible quality. This is extremely helpful specifically for students with less developed language skills, since it permits the detection of the possible causes of their learning difficulties. In view of this highly complex and continuous performance monitoring and of the fact that the grades of each evaluated section consist of up to thirty different criteria, the VEITH certificates can be undoubtedly considered the most demanding, objective and extensive and therefore the highest quality ones compared to international competence.

 

 

Internal training program for the teachers

without the need to possess studies in philology

 

 

The cornerstone of competent language teaching is a competent teacher.  Opposed to the high number of committed professors, both honorary and of private German initiatives that are collaborating in the immigrants language training, we can often find the deficiencies or lack of their didactic knowledge: the fact that someone is a native German speaker, unfortunately, does not guarantee that they will be able to teach the language effectively and especially in the case of students whose mother tongue is Arabic, which derives from a completely different language family, far from the Indo-Germanic one.

 

With the establishment of a permanent training center in Germany we could quickly overcome the current shortage of German teachers.Also in relation to these integration obstacles, the VEITH Foundation has a proposal for a solution that has been tested and confirmed over the years:  Since the group of language schools VEITH Institut works with its own teaching method developed by Dr. Daniel Veith, and which is oriented on independent guidelines from the contemporary trends of foreign language teaching didactic, the VEITH R+D Agency has developed an internal training program for teachers, through which the search for teachers is no longer limited to philology graduates or foreign language teaching graduates. On the opposite, in the VEITH Institut in Madrid one can verify that the best performing teachers are those who before joining the VEITH Institut, had never worked in the educational field. With the establishment of a permanent training center in Germany we could quickly overcome the current shortage of German teachers.

 

 

The VEITH Foundation provides, under the Palmyra Project, with the implementation of its highly innovative linguistic and intercultural educational model, exclusively oriented and suited to the present needs, an integrated approach of action for a sustainable solution to the current integration problems.