The project «From I’Mmigration to INtegration» was funded with the support of the European Union under the Programme „Europe for Citizens”

Short Program of the Meeting

The project „From I’Mmigration to INtegration” was a Network of Towns promoted by the Municipality of Curtis (Spain), with the involvement of partners from Italy, Portugal, Greece, Hungary, Malta, France, Germany, Slovakia, Latvia, Romania, Lithuania, and Cyprus. The project organized 5 itinerant events around Europe: in Gondomar (Portugal) from 17th to 20th June 2019; Tar (Hungary) from 16th to 19th September 2019; Safi (Malta) from 2nd to 5th December 2019; Moletai (Lithuania) from 2nd to 5th February 2020 and in Curtis (Spain) from 22nd to 25th August 2021.

One of the objectives of the project, in line with the priorities of Europe for Citizens program, was to create a strong and long-term transnational network open to the values of friendship, solidarity, intercultural dialogue and interaction between citizens with a bottom up approach to the European Agenda, as well as raising awareness about actual matters like migration, solidarity, cooperation, euroescepticism and active citizenship.

Specifically, the project sought the following objectives:

– a greater deepening of knowledge, which made it possible to understand the differences, leaving aside stereotypes, prejudices and stigmatizations about certain peoples and regions;
– guarantee the exchange of good practices through the political representatives present, who in turn encouraged a structured and intercultural dialogue between the participants and the participating entities;

– compare the instruments and levels of action on issues of inclusion, integration, assimilation and exclusion;
– promote a common feeling of European belonging, with the intention of seeking a more inclusive, safe and human rights-promoting society, while recognizing the importance of European institutions, leading to consider the new opportunities they offer.

The project encouraged citizens to reflect what type of society they wanted, while they strengthened their sense of belonging to the EU. Each activity, using ICT tools, were scheduled, such as conferences, round tables, case studies, question time, interactive workshops, project work and cultural visits, all required the active participation of citizens with attention to migrants, associations, NGO’s, politicians, experts, public administrations, cultural, social and economic actors, and also citizens that were never involved in this kind of projects.

The program was a great opportunity for the exchange of methodologies and interaction between representatives and citizens. The communication was through local and foreign media, who disseminated the information and the events to the different countries, in order to ensure the widest possible public impact. It was also organized several events of dissemination and visibility of the project and the program „Europe for Citizens”.