Kick-off and state-of-play workshop in Brussels
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The ISI project group came together for their first workshop from 26-27 May 2025.
Hosted by the coordinator at their Brussels office, representatives from all project partners discussed and documented out the status of the partners’ current challenges in their activities for Ukrainian refugees. Furthermore, important basics that the project will build upon in the following steps were covered, including a first outline of the planned curriculum for aid volunteers.
The brainstormings and discussions revealed many similar points and challenges, such as a marked difference in refugees’ needs over time and attempts to accommodate this or offering employment and volunteering opportunities within their own organisations. It also showed a geographical divide not only when it came to issues of sharing a direct border with Ukraine and the corresponding consequences for aid-on-arrival, but also in specific integration obstacles such as less acquisition of the local language in countries where parts of the population, same as a large proportion of the Ukrainian refugees, speak Russian as a second or foreign language.
Partners also made necessary arrangements regarding administrative procedures and dissemination measures, to enable a successful implementation of the project going forward.
The project group is currently finalizing several deliverables that were drafted and/or conceptualized at the Brussels meeting. ISI will then proceed by holding a curriculum creation workshop in Slovakia in October of this year, before proceeding with pilot trainings and service implementation.
