REFUGUEES: CREATING AN E-LEARNING COMMUNITY OF PRACTICE IN PORTUGAL

The recent conflicts in different regions of the Globe entailed over one million refugees to Europe, and the influx is predicted to continue in the years to come. One of the problems that the hosting countries have when receiving these migrants, after dealing with the basic needs, is to help them to get integrated and useful to the society. This can be achieved through entrepreneurship. Besides creating small businesses related with their core knowledge, feeling useful, sometimes being innovative, they can also create new jobs. Of course, this is a solution that requires training, information and support. In order to contribute to a better and easier integration a consortium of different organizations developed a project - ReEntry. This project aims to create a "Catalogue for Migrant Entrepreneurs" which will be presented on an e-platform. This online catalogue will help stakeholders and target groups to learn about best practices and innovative solutions to encourage migrant entrepreneurship. In this article we present the results of the first step of this project in one of the partner countries Portugal. We present the national policies for migrant entrepreneurship and profile some national educational programmes and initiatives aimed at improving migrant employability, self-employment and learning. As a result, we also identify the main features that should consider when we are creating an e-learning environment and a community of practice to this specific target.