R.E.A.L. project - "Refugee Exchange, Advocacy and Leadership"

R.E.A.L. is a project that aims to virtually bring together refugees, asylum seekers and stateless advocates across the Europe region to exchange knowledge and experiences and work on enhancing self-advocacy and leadership skills.

R.E.A.L. is a project created by New Women Connectors and European Coalition for Migrants and Refugees with UNHCR and will function as a platform for capacity building of refugee-led organisations, refugee leaders, volunteers and representatives in Europe.

In spite of a multitude of positive practices at national and local level, most refugee-led organizations, volunteers, outreach workers and personnel have limited opportunities for exchange and capacity building, or to share experiences, network and ensure learning across different contexts. Therefore, the impact and effectiveness of refugee-led initiatives in Europe can be strengthened through enhanced collaboration across contexts and through the more systematic sharing of lessons learned. This project aims to reach this objective.

The project consists of 3-5 online knowledge exchanges and info transfers that migrant, refugee and stateless community leaders will select and engage in as participants and experts.

This is for you if you are a Self Led Organization, initiative, project, civil movement, or any leading any type of active participation in your new community

MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THE PROJECT WILL BE SHARED IN THE KICKOFF EVENT

R.E.A.L. project - "Refugee Exchange, Advocacy and Leadership" KICKOFF

17 de junio de 2022, 14:00–16:00 CEST | https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZ

Register Now

UNITES – UrbaN InTEgration Strategies through co-design

Cities are at the forefront of welcoming and guiding newco mers and making integration policies more effective and impactful. Going even further in its efforts for integration, the local level is working on building a systematic collaboration with partners outside the municipality from a “whole society approach”. Citizens and the local community, social partners, together with migrants themselves, have increasingly become protagonists in co-designing integration measures. By becoming actors rather than passive beneficiaries in this area, migrants are empowered and faster integrated into the local society.

This is why UNITES will use co-design methods to improve integration strategies and decrease societal polarisation.

About

Led by Eurocities, UNITES (UrbaN InTEgration Strategies through co-design) trains and accompanies local authorities to co-design integration strategies with other stakeholders and migrants.

* In a first stage, UNITES will develop training on co-designing integration strategies, incorporating research on best practices across Europe. A pilot version of the training will be conducted with staff from the 8 cities participating in the project. The training will then be developed into an open access online course (MOOC) for integration practitioners outside the project.

* In a second stage, the 8 city partners will receive a 20.000€ grant to set up a new mechanism for stakeholder consultation and develop their local integration strategy through co-design with stakeholders and migrants. In planning and implementing their actions, they will receive guidance from colleagues from other cities and migrant organisations in peer workshops and peer-visits to each city.

Objectives

1. improve integration outcomes by co-designing integration strategies with stakeholders, citizens and vulnerable migrants

2. train integration practitioners in managing co-design processes through different forms of learning and exchange of good practices

3. foster the participation of citizens, including migrants but also vulnerable migrants in the co-design of integration strategy

4. raise awareness on the advantages of a “whole of society approach” to integration

NWC in UNITES

Advisory role in the research and training phase as well as the peer support programme

NWC and UNITEE will support our partners Eurocities and MigrationWorks in the creation and implementation of the training and delivery of these sessions on co- design with women and (migrant) businesses.

The training serves to prepare the city practitioners to design effective stakeholder coordination mechanisms and citizen engagement to develop integration strategies, which will be translated into an online training and a comprehensive multi-media How-to-Guide on co-design in a more compact and accessible format.

NWC is responsible for guaranteeing the quality of the intervention and ensuring that it fits the needs of the migrant communities, including women, LGBTQIA and other marginalized groups, in order for it to be as applicable as possible in the different contexts.

NWC will be an integral part of the implementation and evaluation of the pilot programmeand will provide an expert intervention on meaningful participation, perspective and lived experiences of migrants and refugees in policy design.

NWC will then help apply the knowledge provided by the training to specific actions and local contexts, through the creation of a supportive community of practice during online-workshops and field visits to each city.

Partners

Expert Partners

Eurocities: Leader of this project, Eurocities is the network of major European cities, with over 200 member cities in 38 countries. Working to improve the quality of urban life, Eurocities strives for a Europe where cities are genuine partners with the EU to create a better future. Eurocities has long-standing experience in developing impactful methodologies for deep transnational learning among cities, especially in migration and integration.

MigrationWork is a non-profit consultancy supporting communities, practitioners and policymakers to respond to migration in ways that ensure its benefit to both migrant and established residents. The organisation has more than a decade of experience supporting cities in developing integration strategies, including through co-design processes.

UNITEE is the only organisation in Europe representing entrepreneurs and professionals with a migrant background. Together with its members in 19 EU member states, UNITEE works towards an economically strong Europe, which is sustainable, social, and smart, drawing its strength from the diversity of its citizens.

Partner cities

Athens

Bologna

Dusseldorf

Grenoble Alpes Métropoles Oulu Prague Zagreb Zaragoza

Find some more information here

MILE PROJECT

Migrant Integration Through Locally-Designed Experiences

Grant reference nr. AMIF-2020-AG-CALL-03101038364

What is MILE about?

MILE is about empowering the local community as a whole, including migrant communities. The aim is to provide municipalities and migrant-led associations with sustainable and inclusive mechanisms for exchange that can act as a springboard for deeper social, economic, and political inclusion.

By involving six EU Member States - Belgium, Greece, Latvia, Spain, the Netherlands, and the UK - MILE will assess different local contexts and produce research-based and locally-tailored responses addressing the needs and priorities of municipalities and migrant communities.

MILE’s goals

• Achieve a better understanding of the needs of municipalities and migrant and refugee

• communities in their local context in different areas of society;

• Boost the political participation and leadership of migrants and refugees;

• Promote the management of inclusive policy-making in municipalities;

• Turn the experiences into recommendations for better integration policies;

• In the long term,s: Create a European Network of Exchange and Collaboration (ENEC) among municipalities and set up a peer-to-peer exchange platform for migrant-led organisations that will constitute the backbone of future collaborations.

MILE’s approach and tools

MILE is a two-year project that aims to create a sustainable ecosystem of exchange between municipalities and migrant communities to promote the engagement of migrants and refugees in local policy-making, including in areas such as housing, education, health, and entrepreneurship.

MILE will equip municipalities and migrant communities with tools to establish consultation mechanisms and exchange networks and will offer management and leadership trainings to help raise migrants’ voices in local decision-making. Local and European events and campaigns will raise awareness around the issues and the project’s activities.

NEW WOMEN CONNECTORS' ROLE

Building Bridge using the approach provided by the newly established Expert group on Migrant Views with the European Commission.

This includes delivering trainings for both local migrant-led organizations and the municipalities on leadership skills and diverse management, with the guarantee of a multiplier effect to reach inside the migrant communities and in the municipalities as well.

Building up a community of practices that will go beyond the duration of the project, putting in contact with similar actors in different countries, fostering the exchange and multiplying the effect of best practices in more than one country.

The main outcome is represented by the constitution of ENEC for municipalities and the peer-to-peer platform for migrant organizations.