The university's Centre for International Solidarity (CESI) is a partner in the European Cooperation project NEAR (NEwly ARrived in a common home), a two-year project funded by the European Commission under the Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund (AMIF). The project is coordinated by the ISMU Foundation in Milan, whose work is focused on research and projects relating to immigration. ISMU and CESI have three other NGO partners: TAMAT NGO (Italy), Cardet NGO (Cyprus) and AidGlobal (Portugal). The project aims to improve the experience of migrants in Milan, Perugia, Nicosia, and Lisbon.
CHEI is leading Work Package 6, which targets international degree-seeking students from countries with a high emigration rate. CHEI post-doctoral fellow Olivia Mair is coordinating the WP, helped initially by Ilaria Porta, a CHEI collaborator, and subsequently by CHEI newcomer Francesca Poli. So far, the project researchers have mapped the on-campus services for international students and are at present conducting focus groups with international students, where experiences and the challenges they face are shared.
The information gathered in the focus groups will lead to the creation of a map of the local community and handbook of services, meeting points and sites of interest with the aim of helping students feel engaged and included. In December, Olivia Mair presented the project at the IHES Virtual Conference 2021 hosted by the Global Impact Institute (Prague) in a panel session dedicated to “Supporting Refugees and Migrants”.