BLEND-IN Kick-off Meeting, Modena, Italy

The BLEND-IN project is a 24-months-project aiming to prepare and empower one of the most vulnerable groups of our times, young migrants & refugees, seeking a better life in an EU host/ receiving country. The ultimate objective of the project is to facilitate their smooth cultural and social integration in the host/ receiving community. As refugee and migrant integration is a two-way process, involving both refugees and the receiving societies, the project also addresses youth social workers and operators.

BLEND-IN partners plan to develop two main resources in the course of the project: a mobile application, addressing young refugees and migrants’ needs during their early days in a host/ receiving country and a handbook for operators with good practices towards the successful integration of young refugees and migrants.

The first BLEND-IN partner meeting took place in Modena, Italy, from the 12th until the 13th January 2017. The consortium of 7 European organizations from 5 different countries, i.e.: ANS – Italy (Leading Partner); CALEIDOS – Italy; KMOP – Greece; EEO – Greece; FSM – Malta; CARDET – Cyprus; and CWC – UK, gathered together for the first time to discuss aspects of the early stages of the project, such as the guidelines and deadlines for the desk and field research.

After the closure of the meeting, partners were guided to an Italian centre for asylum seekers, where they experienced the life of young asylum seekers during their first few weeks in the host community and services provided by our Italian partners. An exchange of best practices took place, as two young asylum seekers and their teachers/ supporters introduced BLEND IN partners to the context of young asylum seekers’ everydayness in the particular centre.

The next meeting will take place in Malta, in June 2017, where following the joint report and the detection of the early days’ needs of young refugees and migrants in a host/ receiving community, aspects of the development of the mobile application will be discussed.