The first European Policy Platform of the PISTE Project took place on the 15th and 16th October 2022 in Fermignano, the Italian partner municipality. Almost 30 persons among researchers, policy-makers and representatives of civic society, coming from the four countries, included in the project join the two-days event to discuss local contexts and practices of each field and exchange interesting practices about immigrants’ political participation in small towns. The first day was dedicated to know the hosting municipality and its immigration context with the visits to the local Islamic Cultural Centre, the Albanian Association “Albinfest” and the centre for unaccompanied minors, followed by the presentation of local policies by Ilaria Vichi, head of Fermignano welfare office, Othmane Yassine, local councilman, and Emanuele Feduzi, mayor of Fermignano.
In the second day, it was the turn of other European municipalities to introduce their local contexts and practices to participants through the presentation of Christina Kindler, local councilwoman of Bebra (Germany), Agnessa Solovieva, social worker and project manager of the municipality of Ninove (Belgium), and Dimitri Fasoulas and Christos Zefklis, respectively a social worker and the mayor of Voio (Greece). Finally, during the afternoon, researchers from the Universities of Antwerp and Urbino, FH Erfurt and the NGO Human Rights 360 present interesting practices, that have subsequently been discussed by all participants. All EPP members were very active in the discussion and important networks have been established or enhanced, also in the perspective of the future steps of PISTE’s WP3, which will continue with new Local-National Policy Platforms and with the next European Policy Platform, planned in 2023 in NInove.
