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Description
The project aims at involving the Ukrainian refugees into public life in the municipalities of the Silistra and Dobrich regions. For that purpose specific mechanisms will be provided to improve refugees’ awareness and advocacy concerning their rights and interests. Being set in the conditions of the non-familiar place and non-familiar communities, the refugees cannot define and understand the structure and the ways of functioning of the civil society in Bulgaria and the impact instruments it supplies. The project will encourage and empower them to feel equal and useful participants in the social and the cultural life of the settlements where they live now.
The project will support organizing of meetings and discussions to study the opinion of Ukrainian refugees and help them to be integrated into the civil context of the local communities. Workshops will be organized for Ukrainian and Bulgarian citizens and local NGOs to prepare them to be included in the public life of local communities and for advocacy work. The creation of the Citizen Advocacy Councils will support the representation before the local community; implementation of advocacy activities based on issues and proposals raised by Ukrainian refugees, as well as coordination of joint initiatives of local NGOs with the participation of Ukrainians. Refugees will be reached also through the communicational activities of the project. They will be getting informed about the activities and results of the project and will be advised about the possibilities of participating in it. The local NGOs will be mediators between the Ukrainian refugees, the general public, the local authorities and other relevant institutions.
Summary of project results
The project was carried out in cooperation and with the participation of representatives of refugees, NGOs in the region and the responsible institutions. We organized 6 discussion meetings and conducted a survey with a questionnaire, intending to study the attitudes of Ukrainian refugees and help them enter the civic context of the communities. 33 Ukrainians took part in this survey. We also organized 4 seminars for Ukrainian and Bulgarian citizens and local NGOs. Through them, we prepared the inclusion of refugees in the public life of local communities and helped them create their own advocacy groups. More than 165 people were involved in these activities - mostly people from the Ukrainian community, but also local residents and, of course, representatives of local civic structures.
Citizens'' Advocacy Councils have been established. These small community nuclei are currently functioning as distribution centers of mutual aid in the general body of the Ukrainian refugee group in the village of Kranevo. The location is not accidental - this is the settlement that has had the largest contingent of refugees throughout the project period - this is still the case now. Precisely because the group is large, it benefits most directly from having such units to coordinate community action towards improving their stay in Bulgaria.
Trust was built between the project team and the other refugees in the region, which is confirmed by the interest in the meetings and trainings at the end of the project and the continued communication with the Ukrainian refugees after its end. The partner organizations will continue with some of the activities that were implemented as part of the project. The established contacts with the target groups will be maintained through the implementation of joint initiatives aimed at supporting the integration of Ukrainian refugees into Bulgarian society. We will also initiate meetings with Bulgarian NGOs, as well as with other local or state institutions to share our experience and to look for like-minded people to join the processes of helping Ukrainian refugees.