HumanRights360, an active member of the PISTE project, participated in the 2nd European Policy Platform (EPP), which took place on Friday 22 and Saturday 23 September 2023, in Belgium, at the Municipality of Ninove, one of the PISTE partners.
Policymakers, local administrators and researchers from Belgium, Germany, Greece and Italy met in Ninove to discuss strategies for the participation of immigrants in small- and medium-sized towns and present their policy experiments carried out for the PISTE project.
On the first day of the event, representatives of the Municipality of Ninove guided the participants around the town, particularly at the Social House “De Mallaard” and at “Habbekrats”, introducing them to the town’s history and context, and presenting various migration-related services and policies they implement. The second day was entirely dedicated to the discussions of the 2nd European Policy Platform and to the PISTE Consortium Meeting, in the Municipality’s premises.
As in the case of the first EPP, this second cross-national platform allowed stakeholders from small- and medium-sized towns to exchange experiences and ideas among peers, witnessing the crucial importance of this tool to foster the improvement of immigrant policies in these contexts, that are more and more at the forefront of immigration flows. The PISTE project will proceed on its next steps, which include the redaction of the White Paper on the participation of immigrants in small- and medium-sized towns and two important meetings: the field visit to another partner, the Municipality of Bebra, in December 2023, and the project’s closing event, scheduled for January 2024 in Brussels.
