Although everybody’s attention is focused on the COVID-19 situation, cities still have the responsibility to think about the smooth transition to our normal everyday life and the better integration of Third-country nationals.

On 31st of March SDA took part in the first partners meeting on CONNECTION project. During the webinar were discussed the main project activities, which will help the cities to exchange knowledge and to improve the lives of migrants. They include 14 workshops, 14 staff exchanges, 7 draft action plans and 5 implementation grants. All the partners received tips on how to communicate about integration and SDA’s articles were used as an example for well-presented content about migration issues.

In CONNECTION, 14 core cities and 8 fellow cities work in clusters on each theme (Strategic approaches to integration, Participation and interaction, Gender in integration policy, Pathways to migrant employment and One-stop-shops for integration needs) with other stakeholders. Through workshops, sight visits, on-the-ground training, action planning and implementation, they develop best practices in integration and overcome shared challenges. The coordinator of the project is EUROCITIES and the expert organization that facilitate the exchange progress between the cities is MigrationWork.

Sofia is one of the 22 partner cities along with Antwerp, Athens, Dortmund, Gothenburg, Madrid, Paris, Rotterdam, Tampere, Turin, Utrecht, Warsaw, Zagreb, Thessaloniki Region, which will promote transnational learning on and implementation of integration policies. SDA will mainly work on overcoming barriers to employment of migrants in cooperation with Sofia Municipality, business and NGO community.

The multi-national project CONNEcting Cities Towards Integration actiON was funded by the European Union’s Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund.