INTEGRA project was successfully completed at the end of 2019, but its great work continues to give results even today. A meeting of the lead partner of INTEGRA project - Sofia Development Association with the local authorities led in January 2020 was one of the continuations of the project for better integration of TCNs in Bulgaria. This month news about the meeting were published on the first page in the newsletter of Bulgarian Council on Refugees and Migrants (BCRM) and UNHCR Bulgaria for January-March 2020.
During the meeting certain were discussed certain actions that must be taken in order to develop a Municipal center for information and integration of third-country nationals, including refugees in Sofia Municipality. The focus of the discussion was on the vision of the center, the type of services it will provide, as well as the coordination between the different organizations. An important feature of the Center is that, in addition to third-country nationals, the center will be open to Bulgarian citizens, institutions and organizations with an interest in the topic of migration and asylum.
The discussion is also a key-element and a stepping-stone for the implementation of the future projects #CONNECTION (CONNEcting Cities Towards Integration action) and UMN (UnionMigrantNet and Cities Together for Integration) in which Sofia Development Association is a partner. Both projects are financed the European Union’s Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund.
You may find the newsletter in Bulgarian here: https://bcrm-bg.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/2020_Бюлетин_01-1.pdf
One of the creative tools created by Integration Centre Prague as a part of the INTEGRA campaign got shortlisted in an international competition of radio production Prix Bohemia Radio. ICP entered the competition with the podcast series Salad Bowl of Prague: Voices, which introduces the stories of foreigners, who have settled down in Prague and who make it a more interesting and richer place: Juanita, a bistro owner of Indonesian origin, the former Tibetan monk Sonam, the fashion designer Mimi from Vietnam and the Balcan family trio Biljan, Zlatka and Bojan who run a famous Prague ice-cream chain.
INTEGRA representatives from ICP, Veronika Spiegelová (project coordinator) and Jekaterina Gazukina (project assistant) were supposed to present the podcast series at the Prix Bohemia Radio festival in Olomouc at the beginning of April 2020. Unfortunately, the festival has recently been moved to October 2020 due to the current COVID-19 pandemia. Let´s hope once the festival comes, the podcast series will succeed among the finalists, reach new audiences and make the INTEGRA team proud.
