Health Project: "With Migrants for Migrants" - MiMi
Immigrants and their children often have poorer access to health prevention measures than their respective German peer groups.
The health project "With Migrants for Migrants" - MiMi in short - helps to counteract this: dedicated migrants are trained to become intercultural health mediators, i.e. they are given training in a wide variety of health issues and in event organisation. They then pass on their acquired knowledge to people from their own country in their respective mother tongue. To do this, they organise culturally sensitive information sessions.
These events are organised, for example, in migrant associations, local community centres, counselling centres, schools, nursery schools, mosques, refugee centres, senior citizens' centres and businesses. You can enquire about the advisers via the Department for Integration Policy, which coordinates the project in Stuttgart.
A third of the 30 health mediators trained in Stuttgart have a professional background in the health sector and many of them are involved in migrant associations of educational institutions.
The 21 active women and four active men come from the following countries:
- Turkey (8 people)
- Russia (4)
- Greece (3)
- Iran (1)
- Ghana (1)
- Kosovo (1)
- Peru (1)
- Rwanda (1)
- Vietnam (1)
They have all taken part in extensive training on the following topics:
- "The German health system"
- "Family planning and pregnancy"
- "Children's health and accident prevention"
- "Tobacco consumption and giving up smoking"
- "Handling medication"
- "Oral health"
- "Healthy eating and physical activity"
- "Old age, heath and care"
- "Mental health" with a focus on "depression" and "addiction"
MiMi is a health prevention programme run on behalf of the German Federal Association of Company Health Insurance Funds in 23 cities and regions throughout Germany, coordinated by the Ethno-Medical Centre (EMZ) in Hanover.