INFORMATION REQUEST
Background
The Austrian Ministry for Social Affairs has changed the funding policy for federally supported Austrian Immigrants Advisory Offices (Ausländerberatungsstellen). Until now, these offices counselled immigrants on a broad range of topics including housing, job referral, work permits, refugee aid, child care, etc., although the advisors were only officially permitted to deal with work related topics in the most narrow sense of the word. Austria has no official immigration and integration policy. Immigrants are still considered guest workers who will some day return "home". Because of the large number of immigrant youth now entering the job market and the high percentage of unemployed immigrants the Austrian Immigrants Advisory Offices are required as of November to concentrate on this group.
Practical Steps
To date a comprehensive plan for counselling and supporting young immigrants and unemployed immigrants has not existed in Austria. The few projects that do exist are mainly stopgap and largely funded by a mixed bag of organizations, i.e. Catholic Church, city welfare offices, voluntary associations, Chamber of Labour, etc. The Salzburg Immigrants Advisory Office has requested that we look for successful models of local projects in other EU countries. We need reports, preferably in German, or else in English, on projects on the city level (best would be cities between 50.000 and 300.000), including:
,- job entry, apprenticeship, and counselling projects for young immigrants;
retraining and placement of unemployed immigrants;
training of immigrant women entering the job market for the first time or after a lengthy absence because of childbearing and training;
cooperation between self-help groups and trade unions, city welfare agencies, etc.
,Please contact us as soon as possible on this because we must translate any English documents and assist the Salzburg Immigrants Advisory Office in setting up a pilot project by the end of this year.
Thanks, Eugene Sensenig
Contact: BAMM - Federal Working Group Codetermination, c/o Eugene Sensenig, Herrengasse 28, A-5020 Salzburg, ph/fax: +43-662-881145.