On 7th of March 2019 INTEGRA project team in Sofia met with French MA foreign students who major in European affairs. We presented out young colleagues, who came to Bulgaria on a study visit, the major challenges integration of third-country national faces in European cities, such as problematic access to healthcare and housing and difficulties to get employed even though there is serious labour shortage. The project team presented the policy measures we advocate for to make our communities more welcoming, such as better and more accessible information and services, more efficient use of municipal funding programmes, ways to ease access to the labour market for third-country nationals. We discussed together creative ways to engage more citizens in the awareness and advocacy efforts, and networking to raise the campaign to a European level. The French students will contribute to the awareness campaign by using Sofia City Audit report as a basis for their group work to develop legislative proposals for framework improvement.
INTEGRA project team met on March 6, 2019, with the project team of NEMO: Using the New Media in Education to overcome Migrant Online Discrimination, which is composed of nine other organizations coming from Italy, Austria, France, Hungary and Bulgaria. Both projects are co-funded by the European Union’s Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund. INTEGRA project manager Sevdalina Voynova lead the joint project session - during NEMO kick-off meeting in Sofia - aiming at sharing and transfer of knowledge and best practices, and local awareness-raising activities to facilitate integration. The two teams discussed together stakeholder involvement, joint communication and dissemination channels and efforts, including the upcoming INTEGRA European briefing in Brussels on June 11, 2019.
