Wednesday the 19th of February, the course “Migration, the Sustainable Development Goals and Global Education” was kicked off at the University of Malta, as part of our InterCap: Develop Capacities Together project, in collaboration with DegreePlus.

The overall objective of the three-year InterCap project is “to enhance critical understanding of migration and sustainable development, in the context of the SDGs, amongst those in teacher education, in order to increase comprehension of the relationship between the interdependent world, (in)-security and risk”.

The course started with a diverse group of attendees, with different nationalities and background. This is particularly interesting when discussing migration, as there are different forms and motives of why a person migrates. The core focus of the first class was understanding what migration is, and becoming aware of the different “labels”existing for people on the move, such as migrants, refugee, expatriates, and internally displaced persons, to mention some.

One of the activities in the first class was to understand and identify the differences between “human smuggling” and “human trafficking“. Various scenarios were presented and it was up to the group to decide whether it was a case of human smuggling, human trafficking, or human smuggling that turned into human trafficking. To identify whether a situation is human smuggling or human trafficking, we need to take into consideration whether or not there the person has moved voluntary, whether or not the person who is being moved is exploited in any way, and if the relationship between the two people involved ends at the end of the journey (smuggling) or continues also once the country of destination is reached (trafficking).

It was an interesting, interactive, and educational kick-off for the upcoming eight classes in which we will go more in-depth not only on migration, but also sustainable development, and how the two are interconnected.

 

To read more about the InterCap project, check out our “current projects” page, or click here.

To access the online training package for free, click here.

 

Article by Zoë Grivel

Photos taken during the first class of the course (19th February, 2020).