The involved actors in this European project are:

• The MRS Consultancy Ltd., UK
  www.mrsconsultancy.com
• Grafia, Czech Republic
  www.grafia.cz
• DGB Bildungswerk, Germany
  www.dgb-bildungswerk.de
• RKW Kompetenzzentrum, Germany
  www.rkw.de
• European Institute for e-learning, France
  www.eife-l.org
• CRI-Greta du Velay, France
  conseil-recherche-innovation.net
• The Latvian Adult Education Association, Latvia
  www.laea.lv
• Wyzsza Szkola Biznesu - National-Louis University, Poland
  www.wsb-nlu.edu.pl
• The Grimsby Institute of Further and Higher Education, UK
  www.grimsby.ac.uk
• Learning and Skills Council North Yorkshire, UK
  www.lsc.gov.uk/southyorkshire

The Epitome project is making some excellent progress with new e-learning resources and piloting will take place between April and August 2008. Much of this work has been based on the Market Research that the partners undertook with small businesses, current migrant workers and those who may wish to work in other countries. The key findings were to identify the issues of most concern to all:

• Living in a new country
• Working in a new country: the conditions and requirements
• Health and Safety
• Food hygiene

Benefits for enterprises

Vocational qualification and continuing education measures are important pre-conditions for the better integration of migrant workers in the enterprise. The development of a continuing education module, which is tailored to the companies’ needs, will support the

• building up of competences / update of the competences of the employees with migration background about health and safety at work and employment-protection
• sustainable increase of efficiency and quality of the enterprise.

Other benefits for enterprises which result especially from the application of media-supported e-learning offers are: cost advantages in comparison with conventional learning methods and increase of application flexibility.

In 2008, the national actors are looking for small and medium enterprises to test the programmes.
Companies which are interested in joining the project are requested to contact Dr. Noemí Fernández Sánchez, RKW Kompetenzzentrum, Germany, email: sanchez@rkw.de

The project is also supporting “Learning Champions” in businesses and for potential migrant workers. These will help and adise learners to gain the skills.

More information:
www.epitome.eu.com