Organized as part of the Ci-RES project “Création de Capacités Institutionnelles d’intégration des Réfugiés dans l’Enseignement Supérieur“, four weeks of cultural, sports and professional integration activities have been organized, bringing together refugee and Algerian students from the universities of Ouargla, Bejaia, Tizi-Ouzou and Sétif 2 by giving very rich experiences in sharing and emotions.
This “caravane” started on May 7th and finished on June 3rd. A very rich and diversified program was drawn up for it with conferences, training, theatrical & musical performances and declamation of poetry, culinary activity as well as educational and tourist outings, in order to favor a reciprocal better knowledge among students and giving them the opportunity to see mostly their ressemblances and not their differences
These weeks had the aim of fostering intercultural dialogue, promoting partnership with civil society and the local community, emphasizing the issue of refugee and training students on entrepreneurship by giving them tools to enhance their employability.
The closing week took place at the University of Sétif 2, coordinator of the project, bringing together the Algerian partners including the 4 rectors and the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research, – which illustrated how important the project’s activities are to offer more adequate responses to these students in a situation of vulnerability- as well as the partners of La Rioja and La Coruna from Spain, Bergamo and Unimed from Italy and the University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne and also the Erasmus + Algeria office, the MENA office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Adwaa Rights Association and many civil society actors. It was an opportunity to live the last week all together, to participate in the final competition and to see how the students had learned everything together in a spirit of sharing and exchange.
To conclude this intense and fruitful period the Ci-RES project was presented at the University of Palermo paving the way to integrate the project network to new actors. Finally, In order to ensure the sustainability of the project, the partnership decided to organize activities to celebrate the annual international Refugee day, based on the Ci-RES experience.