Alicante Expands Migrant Integration Programme in Northern Schools

Alicante is committed to integrating migrant students, expanding the reach of its School Social Cohesion programme, which will increase from 9,500 to 13,000 beneficiaries, distributed across 10 schools. This increase is due to the recent awarding of the new edition of the programme, which will now also extend to schools in the Northern Zone of Alicante.

The organisation responsible for providing the service will be the Spanish League of Education and Popular Culture, for 222,322 euros over two years, with the possibility of a one-year extension. The Councillor for Public Rights, Begoña León, explains that the programme "works with students from over 60 nationalities and has proven effective in promoting the socio-cultural integration of migrant students and their environment, as it works from educational centres, but not only with students, but also with their families and all school staff, both teaching and non-teaching."

The activities of this programme are aimed at peaceful conflict resolution and facilitating dialogue and coexistence of the different cultures that coexist in the school environment, through social cohesion and active participation. Until now, the programme was developed in eight public schools. With the new contract, coverage will extend to ten schools, five of them in the central-eastern area (Manjón Cervantes, Pedro Duque, 9 d' Octubre, Carlos Arniches, and San Roque) and another five in the northern area (Lucentum, Nuestra Señora de la Paz, Virgen del Remedio, Gloria Fuertes, and Monte Benacantil).

This is a comprehensive socio-educational management action, developed in schools, which, according to the City Council, has acted as a bridge and contributed to reducing inequalities and addressing the needs of beneficiaries: students, their families, AMPA, faculty, janitors, cafeteria monitors, or extracurricular activity monitors.

The actions are developed in the areas of formal and non-formal education, family support, and the promotion of participation by school staff. The programme consists of developing socio-educational actions as a complement to those developed by educational centres to address the cultural diversity present in them.

The educational content refers to the four areas of intervention: the implementation of a comprehensive and permanent intercultural mediation service; the development of complementary training activities, according to the needs of each group, to foster positive links with the teaching-learning process; the offer of awareness and promotion activities of interculturality and knowledge of the migratory reality; and the organisation of activities with families to encourage their participation in schools and knowledge of resources of interest in their neighbourhoods and municipality.