Welcome to E-MINDFUL "Moving Stories"
Dear reader,
Welcome to this first issue of “Moving stories”, the newsletter of the E-MINDFUL project.
Personal stories usually are moving, and even more so the life stories of migrants. They evoke strong emotions and mixed feelings. These feelings are often shaped by how migration is portrayed in the public debate. Indeed, there are few topics that polarize opinions as much as migration, often fueled by misinformation despite experts’ reports and economic evidence. Such polarization puts social cohesion and migrants’ socioeconomic inclusion in host communities under considerable strain, while legal migration pathways progressively narrow. People’s identities are plastered up in stereotypes, making living and working side by side, uneasy.
This problem goes to the heart of the OSCE economic commitments – the idea of building inclusive, diverse and prosperous societies, thanks to the contribution of citizens and migrants alike. Through the E-MINDFUL project, we want to provide tools to communicate migration in a balanced way, so as to create the necessary space for policies that can harness the economic potential of migrants. We want to learn how to tell the story of migration beyond polarizations, so that we can foster communities where everyone can feel welcome and valued, citizens and migrants.
To do so, we need to find out how public audiences shape their attitudes. What make people react in one way or another? How can we communicate migration in such a way that challenges are acknowledged and opportunites considered, so to bridge fears and divisions?
In answering these questions, we will take you on a journey through the activities and the actors of this project. We will meet our partners, the European Commission's Directorate-General for Migration and Home Affairs (DG HOME), the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the European University Institute (EUI).
We will encounter our counterparts in the countries that joined our effort: Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Germany, Italy, North Macedonia and Serbia, together with our partners in the Western Balkans, the Migration, Asylum, Refugee Regional Initiative (MARRI), the Central European Initiative (CEI) as well as the Southeast European Cooperative Initiative (SECI). We will listen to the analysis of our experts. And we will enjoy the innovative communication messages that our young creators will develop.
As the tagline of the project suggests, our journey will lead us through unexplored territories, borrowing a quotation from the philosopher Seneca, Animum mutare, non coelom: the real discovery consists not in seeing new sights, but in looking with new eyes. We hope this project to be an eye-opening experience towards greater understanding of how to make our societies more resilient, inclusive, creative, productive and welcoming.
“Moving stories” – could there be another reason why we named this newsletter so? While we move our stories from platform to platform, listen to our podcasts, watch our videos, and read our articles and blog posts on the OSCE, ILO and EUI websites, and on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook. Over the next 24 months, we wish to become a familiar presence and an opportunity to learn your viewpoints on how we can make migration a resource for shared prosperity.
Enjoy the read,
Igli
Ambassador Igli Hasani is the Co-ordinator of OSCE Economicand Environmental Activities
Welcome to your first issue of Moving Stories - E-MINDFUL Project Newsletter (mailchi.mp)