Over the course of 2022-2023, the Share Network, in collaboration with its strategic partners in 6 EU countries undertook in-depth evaluations of the community sponsorship programmes in Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy and Spain, analysing the different phases of the programmes, from pre-departure to the  transition phase at the end of the sponsorship period. Qualitative data was collected from 159 individuals involved in sponsorship (decision-makers, civil society organisations, sponsor groups, welcomed refugees) across 16 different localities. A number of the evaluations also took a participatory approach, involving persons with lived experience in the design, interviews and analysis.

This webinar will bring together the researchers and project partners to look at the common challenges and opportunities across the different phases of sponsorship in a comparative perspective, offering valuable insight into the good practices which can make the various models more sustainable over the long-term.

The research was co-funded by the European Commission within the framework of the Share Quality Sponsorship Network (Share QSN) and implemented by  consortium partners consisting of  ICMC Europe, Caritas International, DiCV Cologne, the Basque Government, the Fédération de l’Entraide Protestante, the Irish Refugee Council, Caritas Italy/Consorzio Communitas and Citizens UK.

If you are interested in attending this workshop, please register here.

Since the first European community sponsorship scheme was launched in 2016, sponsorship programmes have expanded under highly diverse national and regional frameworks and partnerships, piloting new ways for citizens, civil society, regions and cities, universities, and other actors, to welcome refugees into their local communities. It is estimated that around 6,000 refugees have now been brought to Europe under resettlementbased sponsorship, humanitarian corridors and other complementary pathways like higher education programmes.

The power of community solidarity and welcome has only grown and solidified in light of the number of Ukrainian refugees that have been welcomed by private citizens and local actors in 2022. Many of these new community-led initiatives have adapted elements from established sponsorship programmes to Ukrainian refugees, inspiring new models of reception, diaspora participation and labour market inclusion. At the same time, higher education and labour mobility programmes have adopted community sponsorship approaches to strengthen welcome and integration of arriving refugees.

At the heart of any community sponsorship initiative are the volunteers, welcomed refugees, and intermediary support organisations who work together with regional and local authorities and different community actors. To celebrate the achievements and give recognition to the variety of grassroots actors, local authorities and volunteers involved in the various initiatives, the Share Network will host a European Refugee Sponsorship Convention that will take place in Brussels on April 26, 2023.

Co-organised by ICMC Europe/Share Network and Caritas International, the event will gather over 100 participants from communities across Europe to celebrate achievements, exchange on lessons learned, showcase good practices, highlight key policy developments, and inspire new actors and initiatives. The Convention will feature panel discussions, debates, best practice exchange and provide an opportunity to network with different actors engaged in community-led welcome for refugees. With food, music, and performances we will celebrate all the actors engaged in sponsorship and the achievements of volunteers that have relentlessly engaged in hosting refugees over the past years, inspiring others to join. The Convention will be an occasion to highlight the main achievements and outcomes of the programmes and discuss how to take the main lessons learned forward.

The European Sponsorship Convention is co-funded by the European Commission within the framework of the Share Quality Sponsorship Network (Share QSN) implemented by the consortium partners consisting of ICMC Europe, Caritas International, DiCV Cologne, the Basque Government, the Fédération de l’Entraide Protestante, the Irish Refugee Council, Caritas Italy/Consorzio Communitas and Citizens UK. Moreover, the event will be organised in active cooperation with refuge-led organisations and Share Refugee Advisors, engaging the Share’s Refugee Sponsorship Mobilisation Platform of grassroots communities.

Since the first community sponsorship scheme was launched in Europe in 2016, sponsorship programmes have expanded under highly diverse national and regional frameworks and partnerships, piloting new ways for private citizens and civil society to welcome refugees into their local communities. Each national and local context face their own unique challenges, however, prioritising autonomy and empowerment for the people welcomed is a shared common goal.

The workshop will include:

• A training session on effectively managing boundaries between the sponsorship group and the families welcomed;

• A roundtable discussion between experienced volunteers and individuals welcomed on best practice for autonomy, empowerment, and transition planning;

• And plenty of time for questions and comments from participants.

This workshop is open to sponsorship volunteers, people welcomed through sponsorship and organisations delivering sponsorship programmes across Europe. It is an opportunity to learn from each other’s experiences and share ideas on best practice.

If you have not done so already, please take a look at our new Online Training Portal for Community Sponsorship – it is full of resources, case studies and ideas from sponsorship organisations, volunteers and different programmes across Europe.

Please note that the session will be delivered in English. Please inform us ASAP, through the registration responses, if you require translation in another language and we will try to accommodate this where possible.

The conference is co-organised by ICMC Europe/Share network and its partner Citizens UK, within the framework of Share’s Quality Sponsorship Network (QSN) programme. Coordinated by ICMC Europe, Share QSN supports pilot and ad-hoc sponsorship initiatives to develop into sustainable, community-driven programmes. One of the main objectives of Share QSN is to support the growth and sustainability of community sponsorship by widening the engagement of non-traditional actors, such as the private sector, diaspora and migrant communities, higher education institutions and local and regional authorities. 

The Federation of Protestant Mutual Aid (FEP) and ICMC Europe/Share network are co-hosting this event related to identification, referral, matching and preparation of refugees and receiving communities, building on the experience of several operational actors in developing resettlement and complementary pathways that are supported by community sponsorships from Lebanon.

Lebanon remains the country hosting the largest number of refugees per capita in the world, with an estimated 1.5 million Syrian refugees. The impacts of the country's economic and financial crises, as well as the COVID-19 outbreak, have led to an exponential rise in extreme poverty and protection risks for refugees in the country. While UNHCR assesses resettlement needs for Lebanon at around 100.000, the actual numbers departing lag far behind. Complementary pathways such as humanitarian corridors, thus play an essential role in increasing protection and durable solutions for refugees in Lebanon.

In a context where resettlement needs are immensely higher than the responses, stakeholders must assure they develop strong identification, referral and pre-departure preparation mechanisms while ensuring that refugees are matched to communities that offer the best potential for their future integration.

Building on the lessons learnt from actors involved in resettlement and complementary pathways in Lebanon, this workshop will provide key recommendations related to identification, referral, matching and pre-departure preparation. In particular, it will highlight how stakeholders with different backgrounds and expertise can work together to develop a multi-stakeholder approach creating synergies among actors.

If you are interested in attending this workshop, please register here. For more information on the workshop, please contact Guilhem Mante at guilhem.mante@fep.asso.fr  or Gabriela Agatiello at agatiello@icmc.net.

The Share Network, the International Catholic Migration Commission (ICMC) Europe and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) organise a one-day Share SIRA Transnational Conference ‘Strengthening and Expanding Social Orientation & Integration for Newcomers in Rural Areas’ that will take place on Wednesday 23 November at the Committee of the Regions in Brussels.

The conference will present the main results and the lessons learned from the AMIF-funded SIRA project, which has piloted innovative integration actions and used multi-stakeholder approaches to strengthen migrant & refugee inclusion in 10 rural regions in France, Greece, Poland and Spain in 2021-2022.

The aim of the conference is to explore the conditions for successful social orientation and integration in small and rural communities, highlight multi-stakeholder partnerships and bottom-up best practices, and link these to research and policy frameworks. It will bring together representatives from EU institutions, national, regional and local authorities, civil society and refugee/migrant-led organisations, academia, the private sector and grassroots stakeholders to discuss how to further promote the participation of communities and newcomers, and strengthen synergies between integration and rural development strategies.

By bringing together a wide range of actors from different EU countries, the conference offers the opportunity to learn and exchange practices with peers facing similar challenges. Interpretation will be provided in English, French, Spanish, Greek and Polish.

You can find the webstreaming link here.

The capacity building workshop on mobilization of volunteer sponsor groups and expectation management is co-organised by ICMC Europe/Share network and its partner Citizens UK, within the framework of Share’s Quality Sponsorship Network (QSN) programme. Coordinated by ICMC Europe, Share QSN supports pilot and ad-hoc sponsorship initiatives to develop into sustainable, community-driven programmes. One of the main objectives of Share QSN is to support the growth and sustainability of community sponsorship by widening the engagement of non-traditional actors, such as the private sector, diaspora and migrant communities, higher education institutions, and local and regional authorities.

It is inspiring to see new Community Sponsorship schemes growing across the world – from UK to USA, Ireland to Italy. Each country has unique differences – but also many similarities in each scheme. Core to each programme are the intermediary organisations that mobilize grassroots communities, build their capacity and support them to welcome refugees. Wherever we are in the world, these organisations are facing many similar challenges – but have also many years of experience and have developed many great resources and solutions.

The workshop will bring together people who are delivering Community Sponsorship schemes across Europe to share common challenges and solutions. We want to bring together these organisations to share best practice and good ideas, so that we can learn from each other, and not “reinvent the wheel”.

There will be short presentations, with plenty of time for questions and discussion. The workshop will focus on two areas:

How can we grow Community Sponsorship?

How can we establish programmes with Experts by Experience to manage expectations and improve support for newcomers and volunteers?

We will also be launching our online resource bank – a free platform that shares useful resources, case studies and best practice from Europe and Canada. The website has been created to share useful resources, case studies and ideas from across the globe in addressing some of the key challenges identified:

• How to engage more and diverse groups of volunteers

• How to manage expectations and boundaries

• How to meaningfully engage refugees in design and delivery

• How to grow Community Sponsorship

As well as sharing these resources online, we are running zoom workshops on these topics. The first one will be held on 16th November 2022 to create a space for intermediary organisations to come together to share these inspiring solutions and ask questions.

This workshop is open to all people who are delivering Community Sponsorship schemes.  There will be English and French translation. Please inform us ASAP if you require translation in another language and we will try to accommodate if possible.

A second zoom workshop will be held in early 2023 and will be aimed at volunteers who are part of Community Sponsorship groups.

If you are interested in participating, please register here.

We welcome old and new interested members and stakeholders to join us on October 6 for the second meeting of the mobilisation platform, which will focus on how to strengthen refugee participation in advocacy on sponsorship and other complementary pathways at the local, regional, national and EU level and diaspora and refugee engagement in community-led welcoming initiatives. 

To expand legal pathways and build community engagement, the SHARE network facilitates the convening of the Refugee Sponsorship Mobilisation Platform. The platform offers an inclusive space to gather a wide variety of stakeholders, including civil society organisations, faith communities, volunteer groups, cities and regions, diaspora and refugee-led organisations, universities, private business, foundations,  and refugees. The platform serves as a space to exchange practices, build strategies and joint advocacy initiatives to expand and grow community sponsorships under resettlement and complementary pathways in Europe.  

Mobilisation platform members are invited to participate and contribute to sponsorship activities and conferences throughout the duration of the project. The first meeting of the mobilisation platform took place on September 30 2021 and discussed how to use a multi-stakeholder, bottom-up approach to advocate for refugee sponsorship, ways to make sponsorship more sustainable, and challenges faced when implementing programmes (see video report here).

 If you are interested in participating, please register here. A detailed agenda will be made available by the end of September

*If you require translation please note it on your registration form and we will try to provide it depending on needs.

Since the first community sponsorship scheme was launched in the UK in 2016, sponsorship programmes have developed in highly diverse national and regional contexts and much expertise has been gathered by various sponsorship actors. Across Europe, Christian churches and faith-based organisations from both Protestant and Catholic background have been at the heart of making community sponsorship a success. 

What are, in 2022 and seven years after the launch of the first sponsorship initiative in Europe, the lessons learned by relevant stakeholders? What role have faith communities and faith-based organisations played in the growth of community sponsorship and can they continue to play in the future? 

This Conference on Multifaith Community Engagement taking place in Cologne on May 25th, 2022, will bring together practitioners from different religious and non-religious backgrounds for an exchange of best practices developed by faith based actors with a special focus on practices in multi-faith and wider community engagement in community sponsorship. The conference is co-organised by ICMC Europe/Share network and its partner DiCV Cologne, the local archdiocese's Caritas association, within the framework of Share’s Quality Sponsorship Network (QSN) programme. The conference will provide for an opportunity to exchange not only on changes needed for broader and more sustainable community engagement across different faiths as well as secular actors, but also on challenges and opportunities arising from differences in beliefs and cultures within existing sponsorship initiatives.

As part of its Refugee Sponsorship Mobilization Platform activities, the Share Network is working on setting up a Refugee Advisor Programme for Community Sponsorship to ensure refugee participation throughout the Share 2022-2023 community sponsorship programme. The goal of this preliminary workshop is to put into place a dynamic of co-creation by offering a space where refugees can speak freely and express how refugee participation can support feedback on policy, advocacy, or local inclusion in addition to other areas to be further defined. The workshop will provide a meaningful opportunity for attendees to co-design and give feedback on potential features of the advisor programme.