Strengthening Refugee Participation in Community-led Initiatives and Advocacy

On the 6th of October ICMC Europe and the Share Network hosted the second of a series of meetings of its Refugee Sponsorship Mobilisation Platform. As the name indicates, this inclusive platform brings together a wide variety of stakeholders including civil society organisations, faith communities, volunteers, cities and regions, migrant-led organisations, universities, private actors and refugees - to exchange practices and develop strategies and advocacy initiatives to improve and expand community sponsorships under resettlement and complementary pathways in Europe.

The meeting was attended by around 60 participants from across Europe, Canada and the US and was organised in two parts. The first part featured keynote presentations on participation and refugee engagement from the point of view of a sponsored refugee in Ireland, an intermediary support organisation in France, and a representative of a volunteer sponsor group in the UK.

Four breakout groups followed covering the following topics :

• diaspora and refugee engagement in community-led initiatives

• participation in advocacy at the local and regional level

• refugee participation in complementary education pathways

• participatory research and evaluation of sponsorship programmes.

Some key recommendations include:

• engage diaspora and migrant-led organisations in the delivery and design of sponsorship

• engage exiled students in the design and advocacy for complementary education pathways

• engage newcomers when advocating to local authorities

• engage refugees and migrants in research, monitoring and evaluation of sponsorship.