Empowering Refugees through Policy, Research and Practice

<< Background >>Much of the EU is currently witnessing a disconnect between local developments, national policies, and regionalized EU frameworks. This disconnect maintains a sense of distance between civil society, the EU, and the positive impact enhanced EU engagement could have on local communities. As a result, the success of such initiatives remains underdeveloped. EMPIRIC seeks to effectively fill some of these gaps by closing the gap between policy, research, and practice, and enhance the connectivity between governmental stakeholders and local communities. In a time of recurring humanitarian crises and migrations, CSOs and NGOs working with migrants and refugees cover an essential role in managing the needs of recently arrived migrants. However, these CSOs and NGOs often lack the operational capacities to efficiently deal with increasing numbers of migrants/refugees. EMPIRIC was cenceived to improve the work of such NGOs.<< Objectives >>The project was built to address the following objectives: 1. Ameliorate the operational capacities of youth NGOs with migrants and refugees; 2. Strengthen the links between policymakers and youth-focused NGOs that work with migrants and refugees; 3. Improve connectivity between NGOs in the field of youth; 4. Enhance the democratic civic engagement of youth NGOs working with refugees and migrants in local policymaking processes.<< Implementation >>During the project, the following activities were implemented:1. Kick-off meeting in Amsterdam. The partner organizations met for a first meeting to delineate the organization of the project activities. Among the decisions taken, the partners divided the roles for the dissemination of the project on social media and decided the dates of the following meetings.2. First training in Berlin. EFSAS and the Afghanistan Committee organized the activities of the first 3-day training, which took place in Berlin.3. Interim meeting in Rome. The partner organizations met to assess a first evaluation of the project.4. Second training in Istanbul. Training Academy and AKTEK organized the second 3-day training activities.5. Policy recommendations and E-Handbook. After the last training, each organization wrote one policy recommentation, which were included in the E-Handbook, the final deliverable which also includes all the trainings materials.6. Dissemination. The project's dissemination took place on 4 social media: Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and X (Twitter) with a shared effort and posts among the partners.<< Results >>1. Increased research capacities: In the second training, all the participants declared a better understanding of research design skills.2. Increased understanding of migrants/refugees' needs: the first training allowed all the participants to get first-hand knowledge of these.3. Increased communication skills: covered in the second training, in particular on communication inside the NGOs, with the target groups, and with policymakers, to reach the NGOs' goals.4. Increased entrepreneurial skills: first training, with guest speakers who brought their first-person experience, the participants increased their knowledge of entrepreneurial opportunities for migrants and refugees.5. Increased understanding of differentiate NGOs' funding: second training, interactive activities required the participants to brainstorm on opportunities for differentiated funding.6. Increased practical skills and problem-solving skills: throughout the whole duration of the project, the participants increased their problem-solving skills.7. Increased understanding of migration laws: in both trainings, migration laws were explained and used in case studies activities.9. Increased empathetic skills: both training required the participants to use empathy