Description of the integration initiative implemented
Among the main integration measures highlighted in this story are:
- The initial employment (internships) is a lever for Access to material, emotional and relational resources.
- The experience as a traveller in New Zeland and China since she was 17 years old gives her self-confidence and self-assurance.

Personal story
29 years old French woman who came to Seville, Spain, 3 and a half years ago with a 3 month work placement grant from the EU and decided to stay. She comes from a small rural town in the north of France and has a working middle-class family with whom she has a good relationship. Since the age of 16 she knows that she does not want to stay in her town and undertakes a series of trips of varying lengths and distances, trying to “find her place in life”, always as a “backpacker” type traveler. She financed the trips with savings from previous jobs or by juggling various odd jobs at the destinations. She says she has never needed too much to live on.
This is a woman with higher education and a master’s degree in international trade of great prestige in her country. She decided to complete her training in Spain with an internship in a company and obtained an Erasmus+ grant from the EU, which financed her travel and accommodation expenses for 3 months. At the end of that period, the company offered her a job and she decided to stay. For more than 3 years, she has been linking jobs and others related or unrelated to her training, although always with salaries and working hours lower than her qualifications and functions.
One of the employers came to be considered by her as a host in the city, serving as a bridge to a certain community inclusion, making her part of her social and family relations.
During this time, she has had a partner and although the break-up disturbed her decision to stabilize in the city, she finally decided to stay here, a place that could be her place in life, as she expressed herself. She likes the way people live in the city, despite she initially had ambivalent feelings towards it because of the closed nature of its local population, which prevents her from real inclusion. “People here prefer just pretending… we’ll meet up for a beer… but then everyone goes home.”
Although she is not yet thinking of having offspring, when asked about it she admits that this would be a good place to raise sons and daughters.
She does not express excessive difficulties in her financial situation over the last 3 years, apart from one occasions (unemployed and without assistance) she needed to turn to her family to pay the rent. She has not received any help from the public social services system, to which she admits not having turned to because she was unaware of this option for support. She has not received any help from the employment system either, given the precariousness to which she has been subjected.
She has her papers in order, although she recognizes a great obstacle in the foreigner’s bureaucracy. Currently, she even acts as a translator and (informal) mediator for other migrant woman (usually Western or European). She is in good health and has not needed the health system. She has recently started to collaborate with NGOs as a volunteer, which gives her personal satisfaction. She is linked to several women’s platforms (networks) for mutual aid.

Analysis of the initiative and individual story
RESOURCES AND SUPPORT
- Employment has been the key resource
- Personal support from the employer as a persona and social cicerone.
- Networks of foreign women (social media platforms).
- Language competence.
CULTURAL IDENTITY:
- She has limited her contacts with people from her own country. She is a permeable woman to cultural manifestations of her destination.
OCCUPATION:
- Employment has allowed her economic Independence and sociability.
- Volunteering helps her to feel included in her community.
- She need to improve the quality of the employment (better working conditions, appropriated to her level of education and skills).
MOTIVATION FOR MIGRATION:
- Her migration Project was initiated as part of her integral personal development “to find her place” and she has been here for 3 years even if she came for 3 months.

Results and Impact
An initial project of professional specialization in another country became a migration project motivated by personal development. After 3 years, complete social inclusion has not been achieved. Job insecurity prevents her from having sufficient resources to live independently, so she shares (deregulated) rent with other foreigners but without registering. She makes up for her low income with low expenses.
At the relational level, she has significant limitations in her links with the local population, which were optimal during a romantic relationship with a native partner, but which diminished after the break-up. Her relationships are limited to the usually middle-class and English-speaking foreign population.
Despite all this, she considers the city a place where she feels good and where she sees herself in the medium term.