Greek Forum of Refugees is happy to announce that our Self-Advocacy Team, is getting actively engaged in our AMIF project DEPART, with the cooperation of the Piraeus Open School of Immigrants, has concluded the capacity-building workshops gaining the necessary knowledge and tools to cooperate with a team of policymakers as the project unfolds. Specifically, the team was engaged in the following workshops:
- Mapping of the political scene on a National and EU level
- Public speech
- Communication strategies
- Introduction to European ideas-Rights and obligations of migrants and refugees
- Building an Advocacy Strategy
The workshops were delivered by Dr. Theodore Fouskas from the University of West Attica, Ms. Maria Leonida and partners from the KARPOS organization, and George Stefanopoulos advocacy officer of the Greek Forum of Refugees and the coordinator of ourself-advocacy team. The Open School of Migrants provided us with a classroom to materialize the sessions, in a wonderful learning environment they have created over the years that we are very grateful for.
The DEPART project was based on the notion of the interaction between self-advocates of a refugee or migrant background and policymakers, in order to shape a new approach to creating policies that directly affect the migrant/refugee population residing in the country (for more info follow this link).
Armed with the knowledge gained from these workshop sessions, combined with the knowledge and experience of the members of this team, we are well on our way to meet policymakers and create a pilot policy that will tackle certain issues that migrants and refugees face on a daily basis.
At the moment with the support of our project partner, the Municipality of Piraeus, a policymaker team is being formed that will cooperate directly with the Greek Forum of Refugees’ Self-Advocacy Team. We are confident that this interaction will be fruitful and produce a balanced pilot policy, reaching the project’s main objective and revealing a new approach to creating future policies on migration.
