Vitality & Engagement - Developing Communities (VE) - Strengthening the capacity of EU community sponsorship programmes through targeted outreach, training and transnational cooperation.

ended

Vitality & Engagement - Developing Communities (VE) will support community sponsorship (CS) schemes at pilot and early implementation to develop into sustainably scaled programmes in each partner country and across EU Member States. This will be realised through a dualistic approach that firstly, delivers country tailored training and outreach across Ireland and Portugal to ensure there is an increased number of well trained and informed sponsor organisations and individuals, and secondly; coordinates a range of transnational interaction opportunities at the European level for a wide variety of CS stakeholders. Transnational and in-country peer networks of Community Sponsorship Group (CSG) members will facilitate learnings across borders, a transnational Associate Partner Network will gain the cooperation of organisations from a wide range of sectors ensuring a whole of society approach, annual CS Conferences will celebrate the successes of community sponsorship whilst best-practice sharing convenings will share leading models and support capacity building between Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) across Europe. A comprehensive Guidebook will serve as a support guide to new and emerging CS schemes in other Member States detailing the development and implementation lessons learned from delivering the project. These transnational interactions aim to communicate lessons learned and encourage best practice sharing to aid the understanding of the infrastructural and institutional arrangements required to introduce and scale CS programmes across EU Member States. The primary beneficiaries will be refugees who are afforded a safe pathway for protection and local communities that are enriched by the connections made through settling a refugee family into their community. Other significant beneficiaries include CSOs nationally and Europe wide through multiple mutual learning opportunities as well as the enduring resources and networks that will be created.