The Same Migrant Community programme celebrates eleven years since the first workshop

On the 23rd of november 2013, the Same Migrant Community programme (SMC) organised its first workshop in London for the Portuguese community. We reflect on how the programme expanded and evolved and how it will continue to serve migrant children's education in the future.

SMC brings together children and scientists from the same community, by hosting science workshops conducted in their shared heritage language. The main purpose of the programme is to broaden the horizons of the children, foster language development, and promote scientific literacy and higher education. 

To date, the programme has held over 300 workshops across 10 different countries: the United Kingdom (UK), Ireland, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, Norway, Sweden, and even Portugal. Over the years,  the workshops spoke 11 different languages: Portuguese, Spanish, French, German, Estonian, Polish, Arabic, Turkish, Greek, Italian, Croatian. As a result of such a great spread, almost 1.100 scientists have showcased their work to more than 6.600 migrant children.

How did the SMC idea come about? In 2012, during the annual meeting of the Portuguese Association of Researchers and Students in the UK (PARSUK), an initiative called the Schools Project emerged. The idea was to reach Portuguese children living in London giving them the chance of meeting with Portuguese scientists working in the same city. The two main scopes of the project were to reinforce the use of Portuguese language for children raised in the UK and to bridge the gap between these children and the graduate community within  PARSUK.

By mid-2013, a few more pilot workshops were conducted in partnership with PARSUK and the Instituto Camões. In these workshops, the direct interaction between students and mentors facilitated the learning process. Furthermore, since the students could speak in their native language, they had more freedom to ask questions without feeling self-conscious. Follow-up surveys revealed that both the students and the mentors greatly enjoyed the experience  and were willing to participate in another one. On November 23, 2013 in  London, the Same Migrant Community programme - the first Native Scientists’s project - was officially born.

As the programme was generated by scientific minds, it naturally led to a scientific paper explaining the science behind the project. The paper, published in 2024 in the journal Science Education, discusses the effectiveness of SMC's innovative pedagogical method. Several publications have shown that often  migrant  students underperform in school. This happens because of multiple factors like “identity crisis, language barriers, low science capital, low prenatal engagement and issues of prejudice and perception toward their heritage. Therefore, “fostering migrant students' achievement and motivation is of great educational and societal relevance, and effective approaches are urgently required to compensate for this group's disadvantages.”, as mentioned in the paper.

The workshops create "aha moments" for multilingual migrant students, particularly those with low prior motivation in science and their heritage language, increasing the students' science and heritage appreciation. Joana Moscoso, founder of Native Scientists and co-founder of the SMC programme,  had previously analysed the benefit for the scientists volunteering in the workshops and, together with Ana Isabel Catarina and Afonso Bento, published another paper in 2023 in the journal Frontiers in Communication. 

Public engagement with science (PES), as it says in the paper, has been promoted over the years through various delivery models designed to serve different purposes. In the SMC programme, the scientists who conduct the workshop share a heritage language and a common cultural background with the students. These factors are a unique and interesting subject of studies.  The data collected at the end of the study showcased that 32% of the scientists were motivated to collaborate because of the scientific mission of the programme, and right behind that,  18% of scientists joined because of its linguistic mission.

These works are the scientific proof that Native’s SMC programme empowers ethnic minority students. The workshop format fosters integration and inspires them to pursue societal, technological, and scientific challenges. “What began as a simple idea evolved into a pilot, then a vision, and has now flourished into a vibrant initiative spanning multiple cities and countries across Europe. Witnessing its transformative impact on children and scientists over the years has been incredibly rewarding. As we mark this milestone, we reaffirm our commitment to promoting equitable access to science education in migrant communities and look forward to continuing this meaningful journey in the years to come.”, says Joana Moscoso, co-founder and director of Native Scientists.

The Same Migrant Community programme continues to expand, and this year, Native Scientists will be reaching more than twenty cities across Europe. We are dedicated to our mission of bringing science education to underserved migrant children. With each new city, we strengthen our commitment to fostering inclusivity, promoting educational equity, and creating a brighter future for all.

About Native Scientists

Founded in 2013, Native Scientists is a pan-European non-profit organisation connecting underserved children and scientists. It exists to broaden children's horizons, promote scientific literacy, and reduce inequalities through science outreach educational programmes.