Let’s give work to refugees

The „Let’s give work to refugees“ project focuses on increasing the employment rate of refugees and encouraging companies‘ openness in recruiting them. It is necessary that the target group keeps improving in the study of Slovak language and other skills needed to successfully enter the labor market. Refugees should also initiatively and actively look for work in which they are assisted by volunteers. On the other side, the fact that employers in Slovakia lack legal information about employing refugees plays a significant role. This is due to the specific nature of the situation and the fact that public is not familiar with refugees‘ rights. This is why the project is also focusing on activities for those who create work opportunities. Another goal of the project is an effort to achieve changes in legislation and/or in practice in the given field in order that the target group has an easy access to labour market.

The target group consists of asylum seekers, asylants and foreigners who are provided with supplementary protection and who face specific situation on labour market, be it due to insecure length of stay (in case of foreigners with supplementary protection which is provided for one year), ongoing asylum proceeding (asylum seekers can only start working one year after the asylum proceeding has been started) or due to other legislative and practical obstacles.

Project is being realized by the Pontis Foundation and funded by the Accenture Foundation. As a part of the project we provide language and requalification courses for refugees. Among project outputs are also information leaflets for employers about conditions of employing refugees (available to download here) and information meetings for employers, state employees and NGO employees.