Bruxelles, 18 September 2013 DG DEVCO Capitalisation Seminar – NSA/LA Programme This is AMITIEs story. Or ours?

AMITIE is a development education project focusing on research, training and communication campaign on the interlinks among migrations, development and human rights with the objective to strengthen municipal capacities and thus improve the impact of global citizenship education activities in EU cities March 2011-May 2013; 11 partners + 1 associate from Brazil, Italy, Latvia, Romania and Spain; coordinated by the Municipality of Bologna – Education Department

Does a city have the tools & the resources to communicate something to the large public? How can the tools and the channels of public communication be used more efficiently to create awareness among the citizens and to accompany social transformations? Should the city have an educating role on migration issues? Why? Can communication help the enjoyment of citizenship rights? See the AMITIE Operational guidelines on communication Why cities? Which role?

Main challenges: Understand and represent the complexity of the issues at stake for the general public Stimulate curiosity and participation Promote new partnerships at the local level For more info on the communication campaign tools, you may check the project presentation uploaded on the capacity4dev webpage or

Involve and engage citizens and third country nationals into the development of the project Include the perspective of final beneficiaries into the project recommendations on how to build a communication campaign affecting them Joint contribution report, by APEL Video and postcards realised at the end of the focus groups in Bologna Focus groups on social communication

A new idea of citizenship, based on belonging to the same community Developing migration and development policies - approaching migration as a resource and not as a problem …are we, or arent we all, new citizens? People who are trying to build their own life-projects and paths towards citizenship that are not related to the place of birth? 70% of the population in Bologna wasnt born here, theyre children of national or international migration. What makes us feel (or not feel) part of the same community, of the same story? What is the AMITIE vision?

The strengths of the communication campaign (I) Flexibility and adaptability of the communication plan Different types of invitations and calls to participate – involvement of cultural mediators – raising questions vs. making statements Different communication tools and social events for different targets of the population (social media, face-to-face meetings, cooking lessons & dinners, thematic workshops, sport events, video-screenings etc.) Real life stories and collection of local data to strengthen credibility

The strengths of the communication campaign (II) Provision of spaces of communication that facilitated the development of new partnerships among different stakeholders New citizens and their associations empowerment through active role and protagonism Political endorsement helped to engage relevant municipal departments (Communication & Digital Agenda, Culture, Social inclusion, Sport), to mobilize more stakeholders and to ensure sustainability From spot effect to change effect...

The shortcomings of the communication campaign 6 months were too short No guidelines on reporting to PP vs. task to duly report to EC on the plurality and variety of local campaign activities Partnership composition did not include migrants associations Weak or absent engagement of Local Authorities where they were not partners

What is the change effect... In Bologna: Public platform on active citizenship and cooperation Inter-departmental working group to define M&D action plan Cooperation with other EU funded projects (COMIDE and Parlez-vous- global?) University of Bolognas Master on Migration, development and human rights In all partner cities: trained civil servants, methodology and communication products to be used during institutional activities; new institutional partnerships in place among immigration actors and development actors

AMITIE partners City of Riga (LV) City of Recife (BR) FELCOS Umbria (IT) FAMSI (ES) University of Bologna – Department of Political Sciences (IT) Pè no chão (BR) GVC (IT) Latvian Human Rights Centre (LV) APEL (RO) Cineteca di Bologna Foundation (IT) Emilia-Romagna Region – Associate partner (IT) City of Bologna – Project Coordinator

Thank you for your attention! Facebook Page & youtube channel Lucia Fresa - Project manager – Cooperation and human rights office - Municipality of Bologna - tel