Report from the opening seminar in the project Regularization of irregular migration
The opening seminar took place in Prague from 19 July to 22 July 2009 as part of the trans-national activities implemented within the framework of the project “Regularisation as one of the tools in the fight against irregular migration,” financed by the European Social Fund through the Human Resources and Employment Operational Program and the state budget of the Czech Republic.
The seminar was organised for the representatives of the project’s foreign partner organisations, namely SOS Racismo –Mugak (San Sebastian, Spain) and SOLIM (Lisbon, Portugal). These delegates were accompanied during the entirety of the seminar by the experts from the Czech partner organizations involved in the project, namely the Association for Integration and Migration (SIMI), the Organisation for Aid to Refugees (OPU) and the Multicultural Centre Prague (MKC).
It was the first of the four seminars to be organised in Prague during the project and its objective was to gather together all of the project partners, to introduce their activities and to familiarise the foreign partners (i.e. SOLIM and SOS Racismo - Mugak from Spain) with the situation of the irregular migration and regularisation issues in the Czech Republic, as well as the relevant work of the local NGOs and the government.
The opening session and the study visits were conceived so as to enable the project partners to think about a concept for further trans-national cooperation within the project, which was discussed at the brainstorming session at the end of the seminar. Several points for future discussions were outlined and the foreign partners were invited to write articles on the regularizations in their countries for the needs of the project’s Internet platform and legal analysis.
