Project DEPART: Empowerment Workshops of the SAT
We are very happy to announce that the new Self-Advocacy Team which was created for project DEPART, with the cooperation of the Piraeus Open School of Immigrants, have concluded the capacity building workshops gaining the necessary knowledge and tools to cooperate with a team of policymakers as the project unfolds.
Specifically, this SAT was engaged in the following workshops:
- Mapping of the political scene on a National and EU level
- Public speech
- Communication strategies
- Introduction to European ideas-Rights and obligations of migrants and refugees
- Building an Advocacy Strategy
The workshops were delivered by Dr. Theodore Fouskas from the University of West Attica, Ms. Maria Leonida and partners from the KARPOS organization, and George Stefanopoulos the coordinator of SAT & advocacy officer at the Greek Forum of Refugees. The Open School of Migrants provided us with a classroom to materialize the sessions, in a wonderful learning environment they have created over the years that we are very grateful for.
The DEPART project was based on the notion of the interaction between self-advocates of a refugee or migrant background and policymakers, in order to shape a new approach on creating policies that directly affect the migrant/refugee population residing in the country (for more info follow this link). This project relies on the methodology that the first SAT introduced in 2019 with the support of the Greek Forum of Refugees and the Greek Department of the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation.
Armed with the knowledge gained from these workshop sessions, combined with the knowledge and experience of the members of this amazing team, we are well on our way to meet policymakers and create a pilot-policy that will tackle certain issues that migrants and refugees face on a daily basis.
At the moment with the support of our project partner, the Municipality of Piraeus, a policymaker team is being formed that will cooperate directly with the SAT. We are confident that this interaction will be fruitful and produce a balanced pilot-policy, reaching the project’s main objective and revealing a new approach to creating future policies on migration.
