A City’s good practice towards the elimination of discrimination

Within the framework of the Coalition’s Ten Point Plan of Action, the City of Vienna has set up the ‘Start Wien’, orientation programme for immigrants. Vienna’s integration and diversity policies focus on assisting immigrants with taking up residence, finding employment or arranging citizenship. The purpose of the welcome service is to provide different groups of immigrants with the access in their own mother tongue upon entry into the City. The initiative ensures that immigrants receive all information about the City promptly and that they understand where to turn for more information or services. The booklet also safeguards that individuals have access to German courses so as to facilitate their integration into the labour market, the community, as well as the City.

"Start Wien" is one of the key integration initiatives, which has been in place since October 2008. Under this programme, Vienna has arranged welcome and information packages to be distributed to all immigrants entering into the City. The service is available in some 20 languages and includes group information modules on a range of important topics for living in the city, such as language vouchers and the Vienna education booklet for documenting the immigrants’ educational and professional career at the time of entry and their later achievements in Vienna. The City also provides mother-tongue orientation meetings for immigrant women focused on facilitating access to the labour market.

City Information
The City of Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million (2.4 million within the metropolitan area), and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre.

Vienna has been a member of the European Coalition of Cities against Racism since January 2007.

For more information, please visit: www.startwien.at