At the invitation of the Bulgarian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, SDA presented the activities of the Bureau for Information and Services to Third-Country Nationals at the final international conference of the ERIAS project held on 17.11.2021. The project, in which BCCI is a partner, is a joint initiative of 13 industrial chambers from 5 European countries and aims to improve the capacity of employers to hire migrants and refugees. In this regard, the joint initiative of Sofia Municipality, SDA, and the Bulgarian Red Cross to establish the Bureau for Information and Services to Third-Country Nationals (TCN) is an extremely important step in the process of consolidating the efforts of NGOs and local authorities in Sofia for the provision of information, consultation and training both to TCNs and to local employers. SDA's cooperation with BCCI has a long history; in 2020 BCCI became part of the local coalition for integration of TCNs into the labor market, created by SDA under the UnionMigrantNet project. In 2021 and 2022 SDA will continue its information campaign among employers within the UnionMigrantNet project, and through such collaborations we have the opportunity to reach a significant number of stakeholders at local and national level.
The UMN project is funded by the EU Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund.