Fostering cooperation to improve access to legal pathways: EU project SAFE has started!
Forum réfugiés-Cosi (FR-C) and its European partners, Federation of Protestant Mutual Aid (FEP), French Red Cross (CRF), Inter-Cultural Association of Greater Victoria (ICA), Italian Red Cross (CRI), Italian Federation of Protestant Churches (FCEI), Mediterranean Universities Union (UNIMED) and Oxfam Italy, are pleased to announce that the European Commission co-funded project SAFE – foSter cooperAtion For improving access to protEction, has been officially launched.
The project SAFE is a three-year project aiming at fostering the collaboration between stakeholders at a transnational level in order to develop and improve access to protection through private sponsorship schemes and complementary pathways, such as humanitarian corridors, family reunification and student mobility for beneficiaries of international protection.
In its Projected global resettlement needs 2021, UNHCR estimated that 1.44 million refugees are in need of resettlement. In that context, expanding access to safe and legal pathways to third countries is urgently needed to support host countries facing large numbers of refugees and expand protection space for refugees. Private sponsorship scheme has been more and more used in the EU member states, including in France and in Italy, to develop complementary pathways and has appeared as a new option to provide durable solutions for the integration of refugees. Although resettlement provides a qualitative support framework to ensure protection and integration to refugees which need to be supported and strengthened, private sponsorship schemes and complementary pathways, like humanitarian corridors, family reunification and student mobility, represent an innovative and additional solution to address these increasing needs. Building a global and coordinated framework is critical to ensure that lessons learnt and best practices from each initiative are shared in order to ensure qualitative, protective and complementary programs, guaranteeing sufficient human and financial resources to allow adequate reception and support.
Building on this analysis, the SAFE project intends to facilitate exchange of experiences, expertise and practices at the European level among organizations involved in the implementation of private sponsorship schemes and resettlement programs, and to strengthen a European dynamic. At a national level, it aims at providing support and enhancing capacities of relevant Italian and French organizations based on the existing expertise and experiences thanks to new tools to develop private sponsorship programs and foster the integration of refugees. The project will also develop new models of legal pathways with sponsor and resettlement organizations, and facilitate access to complementary pathways including family reunification and student mobility programs.
More information : https://forumrefugies.org/nos-actions/en-europe/projets-transnationaux
