On the 22nd and 23rd of April, Eurodiaconia hosted a two-day joint Employment and Migration Network Meeting. Due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the meeting was held online.

On the first day, we opened up the discussion with a high-level Public Panel called “Assessing the European Pillar of Social Rights Action Plan: The importance of active outreach measures to support access to quality employment for the most vulnerable” hosted by our Secretary-General Ms. Heather Roy. During the event, there was a discussion on how the recently released European Pillar of Social Rights’ Action Plan can support (diaconal) social services to ease access to quality employment for the most vulnerable.

After the public panel, the internal meeting initiated with three breakout rooms discussions for Eurodiaconia members. The topics of the three-group discussions were: barriers to accessing employment for migrants and third-country nationals; the European Pillar of Social Rights Action Plan; and intersectionality and multiple discrimination in the access to the labour market.

On the second day of the meeting, a best-practices sharing session was held, with a focus on strategies for the labour market integration of migrants and the long-term unemployed. We had very interesting presentations from three of our members: The Church of Sweden, the WCC Armenia Round Table Foundation, and Diakonie Czech Republic.

Finally, Ms. Vera Nygard, our Policy, Projects and Research Officer, and Ms. Giorgia Signoretto, our Projects Assistant, provided our members with precious information regarding relevant EU funding under the new Multi-Annual Financial Framework (MFF) for the 2021-2027 period.

For more information on the meeting and the discussions, you can read the meeting report.