MILEstone is a pan-European project aiming at improving public policies for the sustainable labour-market inclusion of non-EU nationals. The project is funded by the European Union through the Interreg Europe programme

MILEstone welcomes two new partners

With the Interreg Europe programme recently expanding to the seven candidate countries, MILEstone took the opportunity to add two new partners to its consortium: Ungheni District Council (Moldova; see below) has joined the project as a full partner aiming to improve its policies. Zhytomyr Polytechnic State University (Ukraine) in turn joins the team as a „discovery partner” to investigate how good practices from EU partners could boost the integration of internally displaced persons.

Bun venit Ungheni!

Ungheni District Council is the regional representative and deliberative authority of the inhabitants of the 74 localities in the Ungheni district. The main purpose of the authority is to solve issues of district and local interest, the socio-economic development of the district and ensuring compliance with the principles of the rule of law and a democratic society. Ungheni District Council benefits from decision-making, organizational, management and financial autonomy.

In terms of public policies and local strategic planning documents, Ungheni District Council has developed and periodically updates the ”Ungheni District Socio-Economic Development Strategy 2022-2030”. This basic document covers the important areas of intervention for the sustainable development of Ungheni district.

In the MILEstone project, Ungheni District Council comes to take over the good practices and expertise of the EU Partners in the field of drafting and implementing public policies related to the integration of non-EU migrants in local economies, the final result being the inclusion of a specialized compartment dedicated to the policy of migrant integration, in the areas of intervention of the “Ungheni District Socio-Economic Development Strategy 2022-2030”.

At the same time, Ungheni District Council comes with examples and good practices from the experience of the Republic of Moldova regarding the integration and support of migrants, especially the victims of the war in Ukraine – knowledge that could be used by the Project Partners in specific situations they may face.

The picture above shows the local MILEstone project team, including the President of the District Council, Dionisie Ternovschi.

All images (c) Ungheni District Council

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In Linköping (Sweden), „StartUp Time” fosters migrant entrepreneurship through peer tutors

StartUp Time was introduced in 2021 in Linköping as a collaboration between the non-profit business guidance organization Nyföretagarcentrum and Linköping municipality, aiming to promote migrant entrepreneurship and enable migrants to start viable businesses.

An important basis of StartUp Time is targeted activities – free of charge – for the city’s residents, mainly in the Skäggetorp, Berga and Ryd districts which houses many people born outside Sweden and specifically non-EU migrants. In these districts, weekly StartUp cafés are arranged where migrants can meet over coffee and, in an informal environment, discuss business ideas with multilingual business advisors. StartUp Time also offers workshops and lectures that promote knowledge about entrepreneurship and the local culture and regulations, as well as tailor-made guidance and support in realizing the individual’s business idea.
The success of StartUp Time is that it reaches the target group in new ways and provides a support system to promote migrant entrepreneurship. Some of the key factors for success are to bring the support structure close to the target group, but also to have committed business advisors with diverse language skills and an understanding of different cultures and backgrounds.

For more information about StartUp Time, visit our project website.

Meet our partners:

Municipality of Postojna (SI)

Photo below of Postojna castle: (c) Jaka Ivančič

The city of Postojna is located in Karst region and it has 9.189 residents, with scattered settlements 16.670 inhabitants. Postojna is the administrative centre of the municipality of Postojna and it is the largest city with the most important traffic and geographical centre of the historical province of Notranjska region. Postojna is world known because of two tourist attractions: Postojna cave as the largest tourist cave in the world (24 km) and Predjama castle as the biggest cave castle in the world.

The Municipality of Postojna has a long history of accepting immigrants into the local environment. Since the 1980’s the region is accepting immigrants from ex-Yugoslavian area (especially from Kosovo and Bosnia-Hercegovina) and from Albania. Since 2016 the city serves as a residence for community of unaccompanied minor refugees from different countries (mainly Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh) and North African countries (mainly Algeria, Morrocco, Egypt). Since 2020 Postojna welcomed also repatriated Slovenians that migrated from empoverished Venezuela as well as Ukrainian refugees.

In a participatory way, through the cooperation and involvement of various groups, organizations and individuals, the project will strive to upgrade the existing strategic document (Youth Program) with guidelines, methods and activities that will contribute to easier and more pleasant integration of young migrants into the social and work environment.

Learn more about our good practices

On October 1st, 2024, you have a change to connect with some of MILEstone’s project partners during an online event hosted by the Policy Learning Platform of the Interreg Europe programme. Please hit the button below for further information and to register for the event.