Over the past couple of years, Europe has seen an increase in movements of people. Not only have Europeans been moving within Europe, there have been many from outside who have moved for work, studies or fleeing their homes as refugees, because of war, economic and environmental threats. According to Eurostat statistics, “in 2015 there were an estimated 2.7 million immigrants to the EU-28 from non-member countries. In addition, another 1.9 million people previously residing in one EU member state migrated to another member state. On January 1st, 2016 the number of people with citizenships of a non-member state residing in EU member states was 20.7 million, a 4.1% of the EU-28 population. In addition, there were 16.0 million persons living in one of the EU Member States on 1 January 2016 with the citizenship of another EU Member State.” However, despite the large number of migrants within Europe, there is a lack of engagement from states that focus on the integration of migrants into the local community. And thus the responsibility has fallen on the shoulders of non-profit and non-governmental organisations. This project therefore intends to bridge the gap that exists between local and migrant communities in 5 different sites across Europe. We propose this project in order to better develop strategies that at once allow for migrants and refugees to be included in European societies, while also retaining a sense of their own identity and cultural roots. The “Social Integration through Informal Dialogue” project is based on one of INPRO’s local initiatives called Open Cafe which was realized under the scope of the Open Rzeszow project in 2016 which was financed by the European Youth Foundation of the Council of Europe. It was initially created in response to the increasing number of immigrants moving to Rzeszow, Poland to study or work. Open Cafe is an informal and comfortable space open for all. It is a space where people meet, break stereotypes about each other and debate different issues. They also learn how to actively listen, be respectful and express their opinions in a clear manner. The aim of this project is to create new cultural spaces for people to meet on equal terms, and where the rules of interaction are more flexible. This creates a mutual understanding between participants which can then filter into larger community-level interactions. In this manner, the project would help achieve more social cohesion and an easier way of living together in diversity. Consequently, this project does not simply mean to engage newcomers, refugees and migrants, but also to foster interaction and dialogue with the wider European society. And as the far right gains traction in many European societies, it is important for all of us to build open and accessible cultural spaces, where migrants, refugees and the local European community are in dialogue with each other.
The project was based on one of INPRO’s local initiatives called Open Cafe which has been successfully running in Rzeszow since 2016. It was initially created in response to the increasing number of immigrants moving to Rzeszow, Poland to study or work. Open Cafe is a social and open event that is based on non-formal methods of education. It is a space where every week people take part in a thematic workshop related to human rights, social issues, education or politics. During Open Cafe people meet, break stereotypes about each other and debate different issues. They also learn how to actively listen, be respectful and express their opinions in a clear manner. The success of this format in Rzeszow brought the coordinating organization to the conclusion that Open Cafe can be a universal method of social integration in many countries. That is why INPRO decided to promote Open Cafe and invite partner organizations to realize the concept in their cities and together they created this project. The project focused on realizing Open Cafe events in 4 cities across Europe: Rzeszow in Poland, Magenta in Italy, Malmo in Sweden and Patras in Greece. The direct participants of the project were young people representing partner organizations who took up the challenge of becoming the host of Open Cafe events in their local communities. The project also involved all together around 720 locals, those being the attendees of Open Cafe events. Within the project, we conducted three international training sessions to prepare hosts to organize Open Cafe. Also, the partner organizations developed the intellectual outputs: the digital manual “How to organize Open Cafe?” as well as series of video tutorials and project recaps promoting the format of Open Cafe among other organizations. The results were disseminated during one Multiplier Event as well as through an ongoing online dissemination campaign across Europe.