Private Hosting Initiatives and Community Sponsorship: Exploring Synergies
ICMC Europe/Share Network, in collaboration with the Red Cross EU Office, are pleased to invite you to the Roundtable on Private Hosting Initiatives and Community Sponsorship: Exploring Synergies taking place on Wednesday, 20 November at the Commons Hub in Brussels, Belgium.
The event is organised as part of the QSN Plus project, co-funded by the European Union.
The roundtable will bring together civil society organisations, housing associations, international organisations, EU representatives, governments and local authorities to explore and discuss the synergies between private hosting initiatives and community sponsorship with a specific focus on housing.
The panels will look at
Bridging Silos: Partnerships between Civil Society Organisations working on Integration and those with a Focus on Housing
State support, Safeguarding and the role of Local Authorities: Adapting Practices from the Ukraine Response
From Crisis to Community: Sustaining Volunteer Mobilisation for Long-Term Refugee Support
The conference will represent an excellent opportunity to engage with experts and peers working on private hosting and community sponsorship initiatives. We look forward to your valuable participation.
Webinar: Enhancing legal pathways for LGBTQI+ refugees in Europe: learning from promising practices
Although there is a greater awareness of LGBTQI+ people’s international protection needs, few are accessing legal pathways programmes to Europe because of the lack of tailored procedures to efficiently reaching out LGBTQI+ refugees. However, legal pathways are particularly necessary for people at risk because of their sexual orientation or gender identity, who, because of these grounds for persecution, are less able to leave their country safely and are more likely to be exposed to violence on migration routes.
Synergies migrations launched the project “Enhancing legal pathways to protect LGBTQI+ refugees in Europe” to contribute to more inclusive refugee policy and practices that fully address the protection needs of LGBTQI+ people. Synergies migrations published a first report in April 2024 providing an overview of legal pathways for LGBTQI+ refugees in France, Germany and Italy. This report highlights some promising practices initiated by civil society organizations but also confirms the need to set up more cooperation between refugee-assisting NGOs and LGBTQI+ rights NGOs.
This webinar aims at discussing the main findings and recommendations from this report among practitioners, policy makers and supporters of refugees and LGBTQI+ rights. The webinar will also be an opportunity to launch a reflection on how to better include queer refugees in community sponsorship/humanitarian corridors programmes and will explore the support available to LGBTQI+ refugees in Central and Eastern Europe.
Roundtable Creating Synergies between Complementary Education and Labour pathways: First lessons learned
ICMC Europe, the Share Network and Synergies Migrations, in collaboration with Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, are pleased to invite you to the Roundtable Creating Synergies between Education and Labour Pathways: First Lessons Learned taking place on Thursday, 17 October in Paris, France.
The event is organised as part of the EU-Passworld project, funded by the European Union's Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund. The project's goal is to design and pilot new education and labour pathways to Belgium, Ireland, and Italy, engaging receiving communities to support with the welcome and integration of displaced students and workers.
The roundtable will bring together diverse stakeholders involved in the design and implementation of complementary education and labour pathways. Participants will share lessons learned from the implementation of the EU-Passworld project and explore ways to create synergies between labour and education pathways. Together, they will reflect on challenges and opportunities, and identify best practices in creating synergies in both countries of first asylum and destination countries.
The event will highlight various policy and programme design frameworks from different countries, emphasizing the collaboration between education and labour pathway actors and showcasing the diversity of stakeholders involved.
Please be aware that attendance at this roundtable is by invitation only.
Workshop: Strategies for Mobilisation, Recruitment, Retention, and the Role of 'Naming' in Community Sponsorship (Day 2)
ICMC Europe and the Share Network are pleased to invite you to participate in the Quality Sponsorship Network Plus (QSN+) Workshop Series: Strategies for Mobilisation, Recruitment, Retention, and the Role of 'Naming' in Community Sponsorship.
This two-part workshop will be held on September 23 and 24, 2024, bringing together civil society organisations, EU institutions, public authorities, practitioners, sponsor group representatives, and refugees to explore and discuss effective strategies for mobilising, recruiting, and retaining volunteer sponsors and the role of ‘naming’ in sponsorship.
Webinar Focus Areas:
Day 1: Mobilisation, Recruitment, and Retention (MRR) Strategies in Community Sponsorship
Keynote speakers and panel discussions featuring best practices from Europe, Australia, Canada, and beyond.
Interactive breakout sessions on targeted campaigning, diaspora engagement, exploring housing solutions, and more.
Day 2: ‘Named’ Sponsorship in Complementary Pathways
An exploration of humanitarian and skills-based pathways supported by community sponsorship.
Discussions on policy challenges and opportunities for named sponsorship in Europe.
This two-part workshop offers a unique opportunity to engage with experts and peers dedicated to advancing community sponsorship in Europe. We look forward to your valuable participation.
Workshop: Strategies for Mobilisation, Recruitment, Retention, and the Role of 'Naming' in Community Sponsorship (Day 1)
ICMC Europe and the Share Network are pleased to invite you to participate in the Quality Sponsorship Network Plus (QSN+) Workshop Series: Strategies for Mobilisation, Recruitment, Retention, and the Role of 'Naming' in Community Sponsorship.
This two-part workshop will be held on September 23 and 24, 2024, bringing together civil society organisations, EU institutions, public authorities, practitioners, sponsor group representatives, and refugees to explore and discuss effective strategies for mobilising, recruiting, and retaining volunteer sponsors and the role of ‘naming’ in sponsorship.
Webinar Focus Areas:
Day 1: Mobilisation, Recruitment, and Retention (MRR) Strategies in Community Sponsorship
Keynote speakers and panel discussions featuring best practices from Europe, Australia, Canada, and beyond.
Interactive breakout sessions on targeted campaigning, diaspora engagement, exploring housing solutions, and more.
Day 2: ‘Named’ Sponsorship in Complementary Pathways
An exploration of humanitarian and skills-based pathways supported by community sponsorship.
Discussions on policy challenges and opportunities for named sponsorship in Europe.
This two-part workshop offers a unique opportunity to engage with experts and peers dedicated to advancing community sponsorship in Europe. We look forward to your valuable participation.
Roundtable Labour Pathways for Displaced Workers: First Lessons Learned
ICMC Europe, the Share Network, and Accem, in collaboration with Pathways International and Talent Beyond Boundaries, are pleased to invite you to the Roundtable Complementary Labour Pathways in Europe: First Lessons Learned, taking place on Thursday, 27 June in Madrid, Spain.
The event is organized as part of the EU-Passworld project, funded by the European Union's Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund. The project's goal is to design and pilot new education and labor pathways to Belgium, Ireland, and Italy, engaging receiving communities to support the welcome and integration of displaced students and workers.
The roundtable will bring together different actors engaged in the design and piloting of complementary labour pathways to share lessons learned from the implementation of the EU-Passworld project. Together, participants will reflect on the challenges and opportunities as well as identify good practices in engaging employers and communities to develop sustainable pathways for workers in need of international protection.
The roundtable will highlight a variety of policy and programme design frameworks from different countries, discuss the various phases of pathway design and showcase the diversity of actors involved.
This event is by invitation only.
Roundtable on Complementary Education Pathways in Europe
The Share Network and Nexus 3.0, are pleased to invite you to the upcoming one-day Roundtable on Complementary Education Pathways in Europe: First lessons learned, taking place on Tuesday, 21 May in Lisbon.
The event is organised as part of the EU-Passworld project, funded by the European Union’s Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund. The project's goal is to design and pilot new education and labour pathways for Belgium, Ireland, and Italy, engaging receiving communities to support with welcome and integration of displaced students and workers.
The roundtable will bring together different actors engaged in the design and piloting of complementary education pathways in Europe to share lessons learned from the implementation of the EU-Passworld project. Together, participants will reflect on the challenges and opportunities as well as identify good practices in engaging universities and communities to develop sustainable education pathways for students in need of international protection.
The roundtable will highlight a variety of policy and programme design frameworks from different countries, discuss the various phases of the programmes and showcase the diverse engagement of actors involved.
Participation in the roundtable is open to representatives from higher education institutions, students, government, civil society and international agencies. By bringing a wide range of actors from different EU countries, the roundtable offers the opportunity to learn from and exchange practices with colleagues facing similar challenges.If you are interested in attending this workshop, please register here.
Webinar on Evaluating Sponsorship across Europe: Common Challenges and Opportunities
Over the course of 2022-2023, the Share Network, in collaboration with its strategic partners in 6 EU countries undertook in-depth evaluations of the community sponsorship programmes in Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy and Spain, analysing the different phases of the programmes, from pre-departure to the transition phase at the end of the sponsorship period. Qualitative data was collected from 159 individuals involved in sponsorship (decision-makers, civil society organisations, sponsor groups, welcomed refugees) across 16 different localities. A number of the evaluations also took a participatory approach, involving persons with lived experience in the design, interviews and analysis.
This webinar will bring together the researchers and project partners to look at the common challenges and opportunities across the different phases of sponsorship in a comparative perspective, offering valuable insight into the good practices which can make the various models more sustainable over the long-term.
The research was co-funded by the European Commission within the framework of the Share Quality Sponsorship Network (Share QSN) and implemented by consortium partners consisting of ICMC Europe, Caritas International, DiCV Cologne, the Basque Government, the Fédération de l’Entraide Protestante, the Irish Refugee Council, Caritas Italy/Consorzio Communitas and Citizens UK.
If you are interested in attending this workshop, please register here.
European Sponsorship Convention: Honouring community-led welcome, celebrating achievements and looking to the future
Since the first European community sponsorship scheme was launched in 2016, sponsorship programmes have expanded under highly diverse national and regional frameworks and partnerships, piloting new ways for citizens, civil society, regions and cities, universities, and other actors, to welcome refugees into their local communities. It is estimated that around 6,000 refugees have now been brought to Europe under resettlementbased sponsorship, humanitarian corridors and other complementary pathways like higher education programmes.
The power of community solidarity and welcome has only grown and solidified in light of the number of Ukrainian refugees that have been welcomed by private citizens and local actors in 2022. Many of these new community-led initiatives have adapted elements from established sponsorship programmes to Ukrainian refugees, inspiring new models of reception, diaspora participation and labour market inclusion. At the same time, higher education and labour mobility programmes have adopted community sponsorship approaches to strengthen welcome and integration of arriving refugees.
At the heart of any community sponsorship initiative are the volunteers, welcomed refugees, and intermediary support organisations who work together with regional and local authorities and different community actors. To celebrate the achievements and give recognition to the variety of grassroots actors, local authorities and volunteers involved in the various initiatives, the Share Network will host a European Refugee Sponsorship Convention that will take place in Brussels on April 26, 2023.
Co-organised by ICMC Europe/Share Network and Caritas International, the event will gather over 100 participants from communities across Europe to celebrate achievements, exchange on lessons learned, showcase good practices, highlight key policy developments, and inspire new actors and initiatives. The Convention will feature panel discussions, debates, best practice exchange and provide an opportunity to network with different actors engaged in community-led welcome for refugees. With food, music, and performances we will celebrate all the actors engaged in sponsorship and the achievements of volunteers that have relentlessly engaged in hosting refugees over the past years, inspiring others to join. The Convention will be an occasion to highlight the main achievements and outcomes of the programmes and discuss how to take the main lessons learned forward.
The European Sponsorship Convention is co-funded by the European Commission within the framework of the Share Quality Sponsorship Network (Share QSN) implemented by the consortium partners consisting of ICMC Europe, Caritas International, DiCV Cologne, the Basque Government, the Fédération de l’Entraide Protestante, the Irish Refugee Council, Caritas Italy/Consorzio Communitas and Citizens UK. Moreover, the event will be organised in active cooperation with refuge-led organisations and Share Refugee Advisors, engaging the Share’s Refugee Sponsorship Mobilisation Platform of grassroots communities.
Capacity building workshop “Autonomy and Empowerment: Effective Boundary Management in Sponsorship”
Since the first community sponsorship scheme was launched in Europe in 2016, sponsorship programmes have expanded under highly diverse national and regional frameworks and partnerships, piloting new ways for private citizens and civil society to welcome refugees into their local communities. Each national and local context face their own unique challenges, however, prioritising autonomy and empowerment for the people welcomed is a shared common goal.
The workshop will include:
A training session on effectively managing boundaries between the sponsorship group and the families welcomed;
A roundtable discussion between experienced volunteers and individuals welcomed on best practice for autonomy, empowerment, and transition planning;
And plenty of time for questions and comments from participants.
This workshop is open to sponsorship volunteers, people welcomed through sponsorship and organisations delivering sponsorship programmes across Europe. It is an opportunity to learn from each other’s experiences and share ideas on best practice.
If you have not done so already, please take a look at our new Online Training Portal for Community Sponsorship – it is full of resources, case studies and ideas from sponsorship organisations, volunteers and different programmes across Europe.
Please note that the session will be delivered in English. Please inform us ASAP, through the registration responses, if you require translation in another language and we will try to accommodate this where possible.
The conference is co-organised by ICMC Europe/Share network and its partner Citizens UK, within the framework of Share’s Quality Sponsorship Network (QSN) programme. Coordinated by ICMC Europe, Share QSN supports pilot and ad-hoc sponsorship initiatives to develop into sustainable, community-driven programmes. One of the main objectives of Share QSN is to support the growth and sustainability of community sponsorship by widening the engagement of non-traditional actors, such as the private sector, diaspora and migrant communities, higher education institutions and local and regional authorities.
Workshop on identification, referral, matching & pre-departure preparation, within the framework of complementary pathways and community sponsorship: Focus on Lebanon
The Federation of Protestant Mutual Aid (FEP) and ICMC Europe/Share network are co-hosting this event related to identification, referral, matching and preparation of refugees and receiving communities, building on the experience of several operational actors in developing resettlement and complementary pathways that are supported by community sponsorships from Lebanon.
Lebanon remains the country hosting the largest number of refugees per capita in the world, with an estimated 1.5 million Syrian refugees. The impacts of the country's economic and financial crises, as well as the COVID-19 outbreak, have led to an exponential rise in extreme poverty and protection risks for refugees in the country. While UNHCR assesses resettlement needs for Lebanon at around 100.000, the actual numbers departing lag far behind. Complementary pathways such as humanitarian corridors, thus play an essential role in increasing protection and durable solutions for refugees in Lebanon.
In a context where resettlement needs are immensely higher than the responses, stakeholders must assure they develop strong identification, referral and pre-departure preparation mechanisms while ensuring that refugees are matched to communities that offer the best potential for their future integration.
Building on the lessons learnt from actors involved in resettlement and complementary pathways in Lebanon, this workshop will provide key recommendations related to identification, referral, matching and pre-departure preparation. In particular, it will highlight how stakeholders with different backgrounds and expertise can work together to develop a multi-stakeholder approach creating synergies among actors.
If you are interested in attending this workshop, please register here. For more information on the workshop, please contact Guilhem Mante at guilhem.mante@fep.asso.fr or Gabriela Agatiello at agatiello@icmc.net.
Share SIRA Transnational Conference: Strengthening & Expanding Social Orientation & Integration for Newcomers in Rural Areas
The Share Network, the International Catholic Migration Commission (ICMC) Europe and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) organise a one-day Share SIRA Transnational Conference ‘Strengthening and Expanding Social Orientation & Integration for Newcomers in Rural Areas’ that will take place on Wednesday 23 November at the Committee of the Regions in Brussels.
The conference will present the main results and the lessons learned from the AMIF-funded SIRA project, which has piloted innovative integration actions and used multi-stakeholder approaches to strengthen migrant & refugee inclusion in 10 rural regions in France, Greece, Poland and Spain in 2021-2022.
The aim of the conference is to explore the conditions for successful social orientation and integration in small and rural communities, highlight multi-stakeholder partnerships and bottom-up best practices, and link these to research and policy frameworks. It will bring together representatives from EU institutions, national, regional and local authorities, civil society and refugee/migrant-led organisations, academia, the private sector and grassroots stakeholders to discuss how to further promote the participation of communities and newcomers, and strengthen synergies between integration and rural development strategies.
By bringing together a wide range of actors from different EU countries, the conference offers the opportunity to learn and exchange practices with peers facing similar challenges. Interpretation will be provided in English, French, Spanish, Greek and Polish.
You can find the webstreaming link here.
Capacity building workshop on mobilization of volunteer sponsor groups and expectation management
The capacity building workshop on mobilization of volunteer sponsor groups and expectation management is co-organised by ICMC Europe/Share network and its partner Citizens UK, within the framework of Share’s Quality Sponsorship Network (QSN) programme. Coordinated by ICMC Europe, Share QSN supports pilot and ad-hoc sponsorship initiatives to develop into sustainable, community-driven programmes. One of the main objectives of Share QSN is to support the growth and sustainability of community sponsorship by widening the engagement of non-traditional actors, such as the private sector, diaspora and migrant communities, higher education institutions, and local and regional authorities.
It is inspiring to see new Community Sponsorship schemes growing across the world – from UK to USA, Ireland to Italy. Each country has unique differences – but also many similarities in each scheme. Core to each programme are the intermediary organisations that mobilize grassroots communities, build their capacity and support them to welcome refugees. Wherever we are in the world, these organisations are facing many similar challenges – but have also many years of experience and have developed many great resources and solutions.
The workshop will bring together people who are delivering Community Sponsorship schemes across Europe to share common challenges and solutions. We want to bring together these organisations to share best practice and good ideas, so that we can learn from each other, and not “reinvent the wheel”.
There will be short presentations, with plenty of time for questions and discussion. The workshop will focus on two areas:
How can we grow Community Sponsorship?
How can we establish programmes with Experts by Experience to manage expectations and improve support for newcomers and volunteers?
We will also be launching our online resource bank – a free platform that shares useful resources, case studies and best practice from Europe and Canada. The website has been created to share useful resources, case studies and ideas from across the globe in addressing some of the key challenges identified:
How to engage more and diverse groups of volunteers
How to manage expectations and boundaries
How to meaningfully engage refugees in design and delivery
How to grow Community Sponsorship
As well as sharing these resources online, we are running zoom workshops on these topics. The first one will be held on 16th November 2022 to create a space for intermediary organisations to come together to share these inspiring solutions and ask questions.
This workshop is open to all people who are delivering Community Sponsorship schemes. There will be English and French translation. Please inform us ASAP if you require translation in another language and we will try to accommodate if possible.
A second zoom workshop will be held in early 2023 and will be aimed at volunteers who are part of Community Sponsorship groups.
If you are interested in participating, please register here.
Philanthropy and Innovative Financing for Refugee Sponsorship and Complementary Pathways
In partnership with the Irish Refuge Council (IRC), the Share Network is organising a Quality Sponsorship Network (QSN) roundtable on philanthropy and innovative financing for refugee sponsorship and complementary pathways, which will take place in Dublin on the 27th and 28th of October 2022.
The roundtable will gather key actors from the philanthropic sector (private or corporate foundations), innovative financing institutions, civil society and regional and local bodies, to explore how philanthropy and innovative funding solutions can help to secure and scale up Community Sponsorship initiatives across Europe and ensure that these can respond to new needs and contexts. The roundtable will have an interactive format, providing ample space for networking and exchange.
Since the first European community sponsorship scheme was launched in 2016, sponsorship programmes have expanded under highly diverse national and regional frameworks and partnerships, piloting new ways for private citizens and civil society to welcome refugees into their local communities. It is estimated that around 6,000 refugees from refugee camps and zones of conflict, have been brought to Europe under varied partnerships and frameworks (resettlement, humanitarian corridors, complementary higher education pathways) to Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Spain and the UK.
Firmly embedded as an objective under the Global Compact for Refugees (GCR), both global actors, the European Union and some national governments, have to date provided mostly ‘one-off’ financial support to increase engagement in community sponsorships. By far the largest part of the costs and resources to run community sponsorships programmes are provided by NGOS, faith-based organisations, churches and private citizens.
Community sponsorships are resource intensive and time-consuming programmes to implement, requiring both pre-arrival and post arrival activities and support. With Covid 19, the Afghan and Ukraine refugee crises, and skyrocketing housing and energy prices, the NGOs and individuals engaged in sponsorship increasingly lack the human and financial resources to address the multiple needs of arriving refugees.
There is therefore a need to bring in new actors with a willingness to engage in, support, and expand safe and legal pathways for people seeking sanctuary in Europe. In this context, private and corporate foundations are playing an increasingly important role with contributions that are multifaceted, combining operational and policy-oriented initiatives.
The Share QSN 1 ½ day roundtable on philanthropy and innovative financing will take stock of current examples and goals of philanthropy engagement, identify needs, and explore areas for future engagement. On the second day, participants will have the opportunity to explore the new area of innovative financing, including reflections around corporate social bonds that support access to education and employment, which are both integral to sustaining newcomers in their new communities.
You can find the agenda and the presentations here:
Refugee Sponsorship Mobilisation Platform Meeting
We welcome old and new interested members and stakeholders to join us on October 6 for the second meeting of the mobilisation platform, which will focus on how to strengthen refugee participation in advocacy on sponsorship and other complementary pathways at the local, regional, national and EU level and diaspora and refugee engagement in community-led welcoming initiatives.
To expand legal pathways and build community engagement, the SHARE network facilitates the convening of the Refugee Sponsorship Mobilisation Platform. The platform offers an inclusive space to gather a wide variety of stakeholders, including civil society organisations, faith communities, volunteer groups, cities and regions, diaspora and refugee-led organisations, universities, private business, foundations, and refugees. The platform serves as a space to exchange practices, build strategies and joint advocacy initiatives to expand and grow community sponsorships under resettlement and complementary pathways in Europe.
Mobilisation platform members are invited to participate and contribute to sponsorship activities and conferences throughout the duration of the project. The first meeting of the mobilisation platform took place on September 30 2021 and discussed how to use a multi-stakeholder, bottom-up approach to advocate for refugee sponsorship, ways to make sponsorship more sustainable, and challenges faced when implementing programmes (see video report here).
If you are interested in participating, please register here. A detailed agenda will be made available by the end of September
*If you require translation please note it on your registration form and we will try to provide it depending on needs.
Share SIRA Look&Learn Visit in Grenoble (Isère, France)
As part of the transnational peer-to-peer learning and exchange activities of the Share SIRA project, ICMC Europe/Share network, IOM Spain, and Cepaim are co-organiqing a Loos & Learn visit in Sigüenza, Guadalajara (Spain).
Regions and Cities as Sponsors Conference
The Share Network in partnership with the Basque Government organises a Regions and Cities as Sponsors Conference as well a Look and Learn visit in Bilbao (Spain), on 15 - 17 June 2022. Being both a pioneering initiative in the engagement of regional governments in complementary pathways, as well as an interesting example of multilevel governance, the conference and the visit seek to invite Share QSN partners and interested stakeholders to learn and reflect upon the Basque, Valencia and Navarra experiences in building successful multi-stakeholder community sponsorship programmes.
Lehendakari Iñigo Urkullu, President of the Basque Country on their approach to community sponsorship
Statement by Mayor of Rottenburg on the role of local authorities in community sponsorship
Coordinated by ICMC Europe, the Share Network provides a multi-stakeholder platform for mutual exchange and learning amongst regional and local actors to foster welcome, inclusion, and integration of newly arrived migrants and refugees in Europe. In 2021 it launched the Quality Sponsorship Network (QSN) to support pilot and ad-hoc sponsorship initiatives to develop into sustainable, community-driven programmes.
The QSN partnership is composed by the Basque Government (ES), Caritas International (BE), Consorzio Communitas (IT), the Féderation de l’Entraide Protestante (FEP), DiCV Cologne (DE), the Irish Refugee Council (IE), and Citizens UK (UK). One of the main objectives of the Share QSN Network is to widen engagement in community sponsorships by including regions and cities as active partners.
Presentation of the Basque community sponsorship pilot project
A leading example of regional engagement is the Auzolana (Basque for ‘Welcome’) pilot community sponsorship initiative that was launched in March 2019 to welcome five Syrian families in Basque municipalities: Bilbao, Arrigorriaga, Portugalete, Andoain and Vitoria-Gasteiz. The initiative is the first community sponsorship programme, organized and led by a regional government. The programme counts on the active participation of the UNHCR, the Spanish State Secretariat for Migration, civil society actors from Caritas Diocesana in Bilbao, Andoain and Gasteiz, and the Ignacio Ellacuría Social Foundation in Arrigorriaga and Portugalete; as well as local sponsorship volunteering groups which accompany the families’ welcoming and settlement process, while coordinating integration efforts with the municipalities where refugees are hosted. The Basque pilot programme was evaluated in 2021 with evaluation reports available in Spanish, Basque and English.
Since 2019, the regional governments of Valencia and Navarra have also launched sponsorship pilot programmes – under a similar approach as the Basque Government coordinated programme. To build on the successful first initiative, the Basque government will start a second programme to welcome Syrian refugees from Lebanon, with arrivals planned for May 2022.
The conference and Look & Learn visit will bring together representatives of European cities and regions as well as other relevant stakeholders, creating a space for discussion, knowledge sharing, exchange of best practices and capacity building among participants. The programme will focus on identifying successful regional and local approaches to sponsorship, welcome and integration and look at successful models of governance, sponsor and volunteer engagement and partnerships with local authorities.
With an ongoing war in Ukraine, thousands of regional, local and citizen-led volunteer initiatives are currently responding across Europe to house and support arriving refugees. The visit will therefore come at a crucial moment to take stock of these first citizens welcoming and solidarity initiatives and explore how these interact with state-led responses and can add to new partnerships to welcome refugees.
Share SIRA Look & Learn Visit in Sigüenza (Guadalajara, Spain)
As part of the transnational peer-to-peer learning and exchange activities of the Share SIRA project, ICMC Europe/Share network, IOM Spain, and Cepaim are co-organiqing a Loos & Learn visit in Sigüenza, Guadalajara (Spain).
Share QSN Conference on Multifaith and Wider Community Engagement in Refugee Sponsorship
Since the first community sponsorship scheme was launched in the UK in 2016, sponsorship programmes have developed in highly diverse national and regional contexts and much expertise has been gathered by various sponsorship actors. Across Europe, Christian churches and faith-based organisations from both Protestant and Catholic background have been at the heart of making community sponsorship a success.
What are, in 2022 and seven years after the launch of the first sponsorship initiative in Europe, the lessons learned by relevant stakeholders? What role have faith communities and faith-based organisations played in the growth of community sponsorship and can they continue to play in the future?
This Conference on Multifaith Community Engagement taking place in Cologne on May 25th, 2022, will bring together practitioners from different religious and non-religious backgrounds for an exchange of best practices developed by faith based actors with a special focus on practices in multi-faith and wider community engagement in community sponsorship. The conference is co-organised by ICMC Europe/Share network and its partner DiCV Cologne, the local archdiocese's Caritas association, within the framework of Share’s Quality Sponsorship Network (QSN) programme. The conference will provide for an opportunity to exchange not only on changes needed for broader and more sustainable community engagement across different faiths as well as secular actors, but also on challenges and opportunities arising from differences in beliefs and cultures within existing sponsorship initiatives.
Universities as Sponsors Conference
On the European and global policy stage, education pathways for refugees have increasingly gained traction. Under the Recommendation on legal pathways to protection in the EU, the European Commission has committed to promote access and further expansion of higher education programmes for refugees, with support from EU funds. The Global Task Force on Third Country Education Pathways launched in May 2020, has also developed minimum standards for third country education opportunities.
In Europe, several pathways for refugee students with differing structures have developed in recent years. Programmes like the German DAAD Leadership for Syria and Africa and the Italian University Corridors (UNICORE), offer refugees the opportunity to access student pathways through visas and scholarships, within a partnership between the national government, tertiary education institutions and civil society organisations. A second approach admits refugees under resettlement-based refugee sponsorship schemes. Refugees admitted receive refugee status, student scholarships and integration support offered by local volunteer support networks. The most known example of such resettlement-based sponsorship programme is the Student Refugee Program (SRP) in Canada managed by WUSC.
The Universities as Sponsors Conference taking place in Bologna on March 10 and 11, and organised by Caritas Italy and the Share Network in the framework of the Share QSN project, will gather universities and other higher education institutes, students, international and civil society organisations, and government representatives engaged in complementary education pathways to exchange and share best practices on different aspects of the existing programmes including identification and referral, selection , admission, funding, integration support and protection safeguards. Bologna University, being one of the oldest universities in the world with a long-time commitment to human rights, international cooperation, and refugee protection is an ideal setting for the conference. It was one of the first of 24 universities in Italy to partner with civil society and the government to provide scholarships and welcome refugee students to Italy through the UNICORE programme.
The conference will build on the virtual roundtable held by the Caritas Italiana and the Share Network in June 2021. It will also offer an opportunity for participants to discuss and reflect on a proposed joint statement (manifesto) and to discuss future networking, advocacy and funding strategies that will build on the momentum to expand higher education pathways for refugees in Europe.
Workshop for Refugees: Refugee Advisor Programme
As part of its Refugee Sponsorship Mobilization Platform activities, the Share Network is working on setting up a Refugee Advisor Programme for Community Sponsorship to ensure refugee participation throughout the Share 2022-2023 community sponsorship programme. The goal of this preliminary workshop is to put into place a dynamic of co-creation by offering a space where refugees can speak freely and express how refugee participation can support feedback on policy, advocacy, or local inclusion in addition to other areas to be further defined. The workshop will provide a meaningful opportunity for attendees to co-design and give feedback on potential features of the advisor programme.