Empowering Migrants to Be Representative Actors in Community Engagement - EMBRACE

EMBRACE will increase migrants' participation in decision-making and policy implementation processes in host societies through the testing and modelling of a carefully designed pathway. It is the result of collective work that has led to the synthesis of successful experiences at local level in several member states. These have evolved into an organic and coherent EU model of political participation of migrants, able of enhancing the peculiarities of each territory.

The project stems from the need to meaningfully involve newcomers in decision-making and is based on the testing of pilot activities in 11 territories, across 6 European countries. A two-pronged training path will be developed, aimed at building the capacity of migrants to engage socially and politically, and at developing in local governments the competences needed to include them in policy development.

Listening sessions and co-projecting workshops between migrant communities and policy-makers will bring these groups together in moments of cooperation and negotiation of proposals, in order to practically implement new policies. The framework will be completed by the establishment of local groups of migrants, who will undertake experiences of public leadership to embody representative positions towards the local structures in place.

The project builds its strength on the close cooperation between NGOs working in the field and local/regional public authorities, without whose involvement all efforts to include migrants in public affairs would hardly translate into concrete actions.