Setting up a Council of Europe Academy for Democratic Leadership for Persons with a Refugee Background, Experts’ Workshop

Following the two-days seminar “Democratic Governance of Migration: Aligning the national and the local” held on 9-10 December 2019, Symbiosis – School of Political Studies in Greece, Network of Council of Europe, held on the 11th of December 2019 in Serafeio Athletic & Community Complex, Athens an Experts’ Workshop on Setting up a Council of Europe Academy for Democratic Leadership for Persons with a Refugee Background.

The Experts’ Workshop examined the mission and scope of the Academies, as well as issues related to how these Academies can operate. A key message emanating from the workshop was that inclusion and integration is at least a bi-directional, and likely even a multi-directional process. Other issues related to leadership, the themes and the topics that will be covered, as well as the way that the curriculum will be formed, have arisen during the workshop.

Apart from that, clear requests were made also for additional capacity development of actors working in municipal government to be able to sensitively, effectively and adequately provide services for refugee and migrant arrivals.