Financial Inclusion amongst New Migrants in Northern Ireland - ICAR

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22Financial Inclusion amongst New Migrants in Northen Irelandthat:• Providers of advice across Belfast crossrefer new migrants to the project• The project and issues associated with itare known in the Northern Ireland Assembly,key government departments and statutorybodiesOutput/Activity 2.1Work with local organisations to make them awareof financial inclusion needs through forums,meetings, launch event, networking and mail outs.The project was launched at the Long Gallery,Stormont on the 25th June 2009. The launch wassponsored by Dawn Purvis MLA, Declan O’LoanMLA and Danny Kennedy MLA, all members ofthe All Party Assembly Group of Ethnic MinorityCommunities. Speakers included representativesfrom Calouste Gulbenkian, ICAR, Citizens AdviceBelfast, the NI Assembly and the Deputy LordMayor of Belfast and the event was effective atraising awareness of the project in these circles. Alaunch of the project findings, including this report,will take place in December 2010 to follow up withthis group and disseminate results.publicise the project. In addition, CAB also attendsregularly the South Belfast Round Table againstRacism meetings as well as participating in theMigrants Forum organised by the Good RelationsUnit, Belfast City Council, ensuring that project staffunderstand local issues relevant to the migrantpopulation.OutcomeIncreased awareness amongst interestednetworks, forums and providers of services formigrants of issues related to financial inclusionneeds of the target groupThe project staff have made extensive effortsto make the project known amongst relevantproviders of advice and services for newmigrants in Belfast, and these efforts haveshown its positive effects. However, while therichness of the relationship between CAB andreferral organizations have been corroboratedvia interviews with some representatives ofthese agencies, at the time of writing, thereis no systematic data gathered by the projecton number of referrals made and by whichagencies in the period evaluated. CAB shouldensure that this data is collected routinelyin future projects as it is vital for monitoringpurposes.Objective 3: Provide opportunities for newmigrants and minority ethnic group members tobecome involved in volunteeringOutput/Activity 3.1Recruit and encourage volunteering from newmigrant and ethnic minority communitiesMick Macatavey, Chief officer, Citizens Advice Belfast.Project Launch June 2009.As discussed above, key organisations have beencontacted and involved in the dissemination ofinformation and referral of migrants to the service.CAB staff have networked at various events andhave been successful in getting organisationsto refer clients avoiding the duplication of effortacross agencies.Project staff members also attended a numberof events wherever it was possible / relevant toRecruitment advertisements for volunteers wereplaced in local community newspapers andmigrant and ethnic minority newsletters in orderto promote volunteering amongst this group. As aresult several enquiries were made in relation tothis, and it has been reported that taster sessionsare being arranged. These sessions will have theobjective of showing migrants the different rolesthat they can undertake and what is expected fromthem as volunteers.As reported by CAB, it was necessary toimplement this strategy to overcome specificbarriers in terms of culture and volunteering ethos.Volunteering might be taken by migrants as an adhoc task and as such they would not necessarilycommit to it in quite the same way as it is normally
Report by ICAR in collaboration with Citizens Advice Belfast 23expected from a structured volunteer programmein the UK. As the training to be provided would beaccredited (Open College Network, Level 3), it isimportant to ensure that enrolled volunteers arefully aware of the commitment involved.While the point of cultural differences andvolunteering ethos is a valid one, it is importantnot to underestimate the willingness of migrantsto be engaged into these activities. Almostall users interviewed showed much interest involunteering if they had the opportunity. In somecases, however, it was evident that issues of timeavailability (not having time due to work) and /or language difficulties would be harder barriersto this enterprise than the issue of interest orunderstanding of the volunteering ethos in the UK.On occasions, as mentioned above the languagebarrier (coupled with a lack of confidence) can bea real deterrent for migrants who would otherwisebe very happy to help fellow members of theircommunities, while learning new skills:“I don’t know if I could volunteer, I don’t know ifI know the language enough and if I would behelpful, (…) but yes, off course I would like, everytime you learn something new that is good.”(Daina, Lithuanian)OutcomeIncreased interest in volunteering from migrantsand ethnic minorities groupsIt is currently too early to say whether this aimwill be successful. Whilst there has been acertain amount of interest shown by migrantgroups, it remains to be seen whether thismeans that more migrants will volunteer in thelong term. At the time of writing there are 2volunteers from new migrant and ethnic minoritycommunities undergoing adviser training andone undertaking administrative work. Therewas a further volunteer from the new migrantcommunity who has subsequently left the CABand moved into employment.It is acknowledged that there may be somecultural barriers to overcome in terms of differentways of viewing voluntary work, however,as noted in the interviews, future planningshould address other key barriers such astime availability or lack of confidence dueto language difficulties or social / financialexclusion more broadly.Objective 4: Ensure sustainability for the projectthrough a future funding strategyActivity 4.1Future planning for the funding of further serviceprovisionCAB has been exploring various sources ofadditional funding for the project and applied for agrant by the Office of the First Minister and DeputyMinister in January 2010, which was unsuccessful.The project has been extended to the end of June2010 ‘through a mixture of re-profiling the budgetand the use of additional funding from Belfast CityCouncil and Department of Social Development’.(CAB Manager)The project is proactively seeking to developfurther services based on the experience from thisinitiative and others throughout Europe (One StopShop in Lisbon, Portugal).Obtaining funding for the project to continue hasso far had some success with a grant from LloydsTSB to fund a project extension to December2010 and clear efforts from CAB and a need fromthe migrant population. The project has been alarge success in its key area of providing financialadvice to migrants, whilst unsuccessful in otherssuch as providing money advice in schools withhigh migrant populations. It is hoped that the clearevidence for the success and need of the coreadvice sessions will lead to the CAB team beingable to put forward more proposals to funders sothat the service can continue.OutcomeActions are in place to ensure the continuationof the projectThe high demand for the service (includingoutreach activities requested by communityorganizations) and the fact that issues dealt withand number of clients seen has surpassed theinitial targets demonstrated that there is a needto continue providing this service.In light of this, project managers showed aclear awareness of the need to make provisionsfor sustainability of the project well before theproject life time was coming to an end, andevidence indicates they have made concreteefforts to sustain it.
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Financial Inclusion amongst New Migrants in Northern Ireland - ICAR

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