What is MILE about? MILE stands for Migrant Integration through Locally designed Experiences and is about empowering the local community as a whole, including newcomers, migrants and refugees. MILE is two-year project co-funded through the European Union’s Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund and involves partners in six European countries: Belgium, Greece, Latvia, Spain, the Netherlands, and the UK. 

MILE is based on the idea that policy-making, especially at the local level,  should be a co-creation process that reflects the diverse population and gives all citizens a say. By involving municipalities, migrant groups, and research teams from different European countries, MILE aims to promote migrants’ and refugees’ engagement in decision-making while working towards creating sustainable ecosystems of exchange between local governments and migrant groups. At the same time, MILE aims to connect cities through their work on inclusion and diversity policies as well as local migrant groups across Europe, to promote more inclusive policies and enhance collaboration.

For this, MILE will produce research-based and locally-tailored responses to address the current needs and priorities of municipalities and migrant communities. The participation tools developed by partnering research teams, municipalities, and migrant-led organisations aim to serve as a springboard for deeper social, economic, and political inclusion and longterm.

MILE’s actions

• Achieve a better understanding of the needs of municipalities and migrant and refugee communities in their local context in different areas of society;
• Boost the political participation and leadership of migrants and refugees through trainings;
• Promote the management of inclusive policy-making in municipalities through trainings;
• Turn the experiences into recommendations for better integration policies;
• Set up consultative bodies in each partnering municipality for migrants and refugees to be part of local policy- and decision-making in a structured way
• Create a Network of Exchange and Collaboration among municipalities and set up a Peer-to-Peer Exchange Platform for migrant-led organisations that will constitute the backbone of future collaborations.

MILE’s approach and tools

MILE’s main outputs – the training for municipalities and migrants groups, the consultative bodies in each municipality, and the exchange platforms – are supported by a science for policy approach, that takes into account the local context and uses an intersectional lens to better understand needs and priorities of local migrant and refugees groups. Local and European events and campaigns will raise awareness around the issues and the project’s activities.

Main project steps

Implementation period: 1.1.2022. – 31.12.2023.

MILE partners

More about the project: https://mile-project.eu/