Funding organization: EU AMIF Programme within the Bulgarian Ministry of Interior

Duration: 01/01/2022-30/11/2024

Beneficiaries: Migrants and refugees, policy-makers and practitioners

Main goal: Developing Effective Policies for migrants and refugees through SAT-based (self-advocacy teams) policy making processes (DEPART) aims to contribute to the particular inclusion of migrants and refugees in Member States through the establishment of a structured and formalized way to consult migrants on policies that directly concern them, called Self-Advocacy teams (SATs). SATs are a flexible, established and involving solution to give third-country nationals’ empowerment and representativeness, functional to their holistic integration in EU societies.

Specific objectives: The project intends to create a path, involving major stakeholders (migrants & refugees, policy-makers and practitioners) into the inclusive policy-making processes in Greece, Italy, Bulgaria, Spain. As a base of the development and testing at EU level, the successfully piloted among third-country nationals in Greece methodology will be implemented.

Activities: The methodology is built around the concepts of integrated, evidence-based and inclusive approaches, leading to the following:

• Assessing the policymaking processes with reference to migrant about their inclusion into the hosting society, especially for the understanding of the obstacles to representation and participation of migrants and refugees;

• Empowering migrants and refugees on their rights and the possibilities for proactive approaches to local policymaking as a step towards inclusion;

• Raising awareness and increasing the capacity of authorities’ officers about inclusive policymaking processes;

• Assembling and training a group of community members and get them acquainted on the subject of advocacy and policymaking;

• Implementing a pilot policy co-developed by the SATs and local authorities, meeting the cooperative and particular processes to be implemented after DEPART.