SIMRA - Supporting the Integration of Migrant Women,
Refugees and Asylum Seekers

The EU project “Supporting the Integration of Migrant Women, Refugees and Asylum Seekers”/SIMRA II, AMIF-2016-AG-INTE-01, Reference No.776132. The project aims to foster active participation of migrant/asylum seeking/refugee women in the ‘host’ society by developing, implementing and evaluating a pilot intervention schemes. The project creates the social space for social interaction to take place, through a series of art, culture and social support activities developed by project methodology.

Introduction

The project covers various aspects of everyday life coupled with cultural initiatives, facilitating access to rights and equal opportunites. On the premise that active participation in the social interaction leads to integration, the Project capitalizes upon tools and practices created by the Partners during their long experience in the field (including empowering and transformative support services and training methods); it aims at upgrading them so as to create a space where active participation of women will have hands-on results in terms of integration-via-social interaction. The partnership has adopted features of the action-research methodology to succeed in providing a model intervention encompassing the concept mentioned above, also having the potential to serve policy making purposes and be wider implemented. As such project objectives include:

·      Develop an innovative pilot intervation scheme, fostering active participation of women- thrid country nationals in educational and social activities, also creating the realm for positive social interaction leading to integration

·      Build capacity of

·    migrant women to actively participate in social life through empowerment, training and skills upgrade

·    professionals in the field of integration, enhancing their ability to leverage participation of third country nationals in social interaction.

The model comprehensive intervention is encompassed in the Project’s final outcomes (guidelines, training material etc), thus allowing for greater impact to be gained: contributing to the sharing of experiences of initiatives and capacity building across EU we hope that the Project’s initiative will be further adopted and multiplied.

Implementation

HYPATIA organized the training of migrant/refugee women to become intercultural facilitators / mediators

The training course was organized in the context of the project “Supporting the Integration of Migrant Women, Refugees and Asylum Seekers – SIMRA”. It was carried out during the period of December 15 2018 to January 19 2019. Fifteen women participated in the 35 hour training course.

The objective of the training programme was to train women of migrant background, including asylum seeking and refugee women, in facilitator/ mediator skills, allowing them to acquire knowledge and professional experience in supporting members of their communities.

In the framework of the project, graduates of the training course will be placed for a temporary employment at the Migrant and Refugee Centre of KISA as mediators/counsellors. Moreover, the graduates of the course will actively organize a series of cultural / art events in collaboration with HYPATIA and KISA. The events aim at providing a social space where migrant/refugee women can actively promote integration policy through arts and culture as a means to facilitate integration of migrants and refugees into the local community.

SIMRA is an EU funded project, which brings together 9 partners from 5 EU countries (Cyprus, Greece, UK, Poland, and Sweden) with the overall objective of fostering the active participation of migrant, asylum seeking, and refugee women in the host society. In Cyprus, the project is being carried out by the NGOs KISA and Hypatia Foundation Promoting Equality.

SIMRA ACTIVITIES - PROJECT DESCRIPTION