Project team kick-off meeting!
September 30, 2020
On September 17–18, 2020, the project team met online to launch the new project, "New Solutions to Old Problems – Exchanging New Approaches in Roma Integration." The goals of the meeting were:
• To learn more about the expectations and roles of each project partner
• To introduce the Project Market and prepare for the selection of best practices
• To discuss partner needs regarding capacity building to support the development of educational and coaching activities
• To present the project's joint advocacy goals and begin considering national advocacy for better "bottom-up" funding
• To become familiar with the EEA and Norway Grants and their expectations for our project
• To publicly launch the project
The meeting began with a brief recap of the project's main objective and the project activities, which are divided into work packages.
The meeting continued with an introduction to the roles and expectations of the individual partners. The EEA and Norway Grants and the fund operator were introduced, along with their expectations for our project.
This was followed by an introduction to the Project Market, peer-to-peer partnerships, and best practices in general (What makes a good solution? What are our criteria? What do partners already have in mind?).
The first day of the kick-off meeting also focused on the project's capacity-building aspect – an introduction to the work package covering communication and presentation training, educational academies, individual coaching, transparency criteria, and a project management toolkit.
On Friday, September 18, we met online again to discuss the work package focused on advocacy (research funding, national advocacy meetings, European meetings). We also shared the status of national funding and related goals, as well as local partners in the field of national advocacy (what we are already working on, who our national partners are, and what our goals are).
An introduction to the communication work package was also presented – the project website, information sessions, social media campaigns, storytelling, the project video, and crowdfunding.
In this session, we discussed communication requirements for partners and brainstormed ideas for promoting the project. We also addressed risk management: what could go wrong in the project and how we can face potential challenges.
The kick-off meeting concluded with a brief evaluation and suggestions for improving future meetings.
See below for more news on this project. Older news can be found in the section NEWS
Project is funded through EEA and Norwegian Grants for Regional Cooperation. The EEA and Norway Grants are funded by Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway. (The project "New solutions to old problems - exchanging new types of approaches in the field of Roma integration" is funded by Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway through the Fund for Regional Cooperation.)