Complementary Pathways for Migration, FCEI to Lead

Complementary Pathways for Migration, FCEI to Lead

“COMET” (COMplementary pathways nETwork) wins funding from the EU Commission’s Asylum Migration and Integration Fund (AMIF). A consortium of 14 organisations from 7 different member states with FCEI as project lead to work together from 2022 to 2024.

Roma (NEV), 18th June 2021 – Green light, thanks to funding from the Asylum Migration and Integration Fund (AMIF) of the European Commission, for a new project piloting a network of diverse complementary pathways for migration, to be coordinated by the Federation of Protestant Churches in Italy (FCEI).  The initiative, named COMplementary pathways nETwork, or COMET for short, will involve 14 partners from 7 member states and is the first project of its kind at European level.

“The crux of this pilot project,” explains Giulia Gori, FCEI Project Officer, is to bring together existing practices in various EU member states – for example, humanitarian corridors in Italy; community sponsorship in the Netherlands; a pathway for unaccompanied minors.  The model fully respects and, indeed, showcases the peculiarities and historic and cultural backgrounds of the countries concerned.  It thus creates – and this is the ambitious objective which we have set ourselves, a network of diversity for a target group which is at times forgotten or invisible: not only those tragically “trapped” in Libya but also those in the neighbouring countries of the Central Mediterranean Route, such as Niger”.

In addition to this, through this project participants will be viewed through a wider lens, in terms not only of their need for international protection but also their desires, talents and links with potential host countries,” adds Fiona Kendall, another representative from the projects team [and Global Ministries-supported mission co-worker with Mediterranean Hope].

Click here to read the full story on the website of the news service of the Federation of Italian Evangelical Churches’ website.