Building inclusive cities with migrants
As one of the last activities in the framework of the IncluCities, the mentor associations organise training academies to showcase their lessons learned from the project, present outputs and results, and discuss with other stakeholders from local, regional and national levels how to improve migrant inclusion in cities.
Inclucities training academy in Madrid (10-11 November 2022) brought together the Spanish association FEMP, the Greek association KEDE, the Municipality of Fuenlabrada (Spain), and the Municipality of Levadia (Greece). The aim of the academy was to present to other Spanish cities the results achieved in the framework of the IncluCities project through the presentations of Maria Grazia Montella, Inclucities Coordinator, Carlos Daniel Casares, Secretary General of FEMP, Javier Ayala, Mayor of Fuenlabrada and Ioannis D. Tagalegas, Mayor of Levadia (Greece).
These presentations were accompanied by technical interventions of the City Councils of Levadia and Fuenlabrada with concrete experiences in the inclusion of migrants and refugees at the local level. Actions such as language learning and the Helios and Estia programme were the good practices that Fuenlabrada learned from Levadia. On the other hand, the Coexistence Board or the Milma programme of labour market inclusion served as examples of good practices of the mentor city Fuenlabrada and were well received by Levadia, who got inspired in particular by the Coexistence Board.
During the second session on 11 November, two migration and inclusion experts shed light on the topic from their academic perspective. How to guarantee the inclusion of immigrant and refugee populations in the face of potential migration crises? In addition, they offered some recommendations related to the reception and protection of children, the most vulnerable among the migrant population.
Undoubtedly, these presentations boosted further exchanges that followed in the Work Café format. Participants from different Spanish municipalities (large and small) presented different challenges they face on a daily basis in the field of migrant&refugee inclusion in their city life.
As a conclusion of the first in the series of IncluCities Training Academies, the following takeaways should be noted:
- Learning from the experiences of different European municipalities is a methodology that works.
- Municipalities' challenges and problems in terms of migration and inclusion are very similar.
- Collaboration between different municipalities helps to solve problems and, therefore, to ensure rapid response in the reception and inclusion of the migrant population.
- Permanent collaboration between local actors is the key to improving municipal public policies.
This short video gives a nice insight into the academy, featuring key speakers and actors in this mentoring pair.