During the past years there has been a massive influx of refugees, originating from MENA (Middle East-North Africa) Countries heading towards Europe, fleeing from persecution and war. As a consequence, the refugee crisis is a phenomenon appearing to all European Countries: some Countries are the final destination of the refugees (especially Nothern Europe), others are transit zones (such as Albania, Romania) and others are receiving the large number of refugee population that arrive to the borderline of Europe (such as Greece).

Greece and Turkey, especially after the EU-Turkey agreement, are accepting and providing accommodation and other necessary services to the majority of these refugees. Particularly, the Refugee population in Greece is estimated to circa 62.000 and over half of them are women and children. During the year 2016, more than a fifth of refugees and asylum-seekers in Greece have been women. Also, Gaziantep in Turkey is one of the regions where large populations of Syrian refugees live in camps.The project titled “International Cooperation For Rehabilitation And Social Integration Of Refugee Women in Turkey and in Europe” is a project developed by Gaziantep University. In the region of Gaziantep, it was noticed that migrants surviving out of camps, especially women, deal with the issue of integration and are tormented psychologically. The project aims to produce an applicable model and training programs for integration to Turkish society and rehabilitation of women living out of camps.

Under that viewpoint, Institute of Entrepreneurship Development participated in the second meeting of the above Erasmus+ project “ICRSI – International Cooperation for rehabilitation and social integration of women refugees in Turkey and in Europe!”, along with partners from Albania, Latvia, Turkey, Czech Republic, Romania and Poland, that took place in the Latvian capital of Riga, during 3rd and 4th of July and was organized by IMKA Latvija.
Each partner organization was represented by a team of up to 4 persons. Specifically, the participants from Greece, who represented IED, were Aikaterini Alvizou, Argyro Zioga, Konstantinos Alevropoulos and Maria Keramida.
The main topic of the meetings were the “Refugee rights and laws” that apply in the Countries of every project partner. Presentations and discussions focusing on the vulnerable situation of refugee women have taken place, followed by visits to three Latvian organizations that deal with refugees and migrants.

The next phase of the project includes a meeting in the city of Lodz, in Poland, on 28 and 29 of August 2017.During that meeting the project partners will discuss about the socio-psychological support of refugee women, the facilitation of access to these services and the presentation of good practices regarding that matter.