Partners meet in Riga for MILE’s annual consortium meeting

On February 7, the meeting of the international partners of the project "Integration of Migrants with Locally Created Experience" (MILE) was held in Riga. It was organized by the Riga City Municipality with the leading partner UNITEE, and 20 other representatives from municipalities, universities, and NGOs from Belgium, Spain, the Netherlands and Great Britain. Among them, New Women Connectors.

The meeting provided an opportunity for project partners to meet in person to take stock of MILE’s results and activities during the first year of implementation and to plan upcoming publications, events and the consultative bodies that are being set up in each participating municipality in 2023. The objective is to promote the participation of migrants and refugees in local policy-making processes.

In the first part of the meeting, the current events of the project's communication and monitoring committees were presented, as well as a summary of research related to the inclusion of newcomers in local policy-making in the municipalities. Special attention was paid to the politics of urban integration and civic participation, and diversity mechanisms.

Partners discussed the key activities in 2022, including the local research papers (you can download them here), the communication and dissemination activities, and the training on meaningful participation that was delivered by NWC in November and December.

The central goal of the second part of the meeting was the creation of an ecosystem for participation and cooperation between migrants and cities, and it was attended also by representatives from Latvian non-governmental organizations working with migrant issues as well as representatives of state institutions.

You can find more information about the insights of the project here: https://mile-project.eu/