From May to July 2023, within the PITCH project, the so called “Cosy Corners” took place at the Women and Girls Safe Space (WGSS). The Cosy Corners consisted of a series of group discussions, art and creative sessions aimed to discover the women’s needs and aspirations. By sharing these moments of self and group care, the women gained knowledge about their rights.

The WGSS is a place where girls and women can find support to improve their psychosocial well-being. The WGSS was opened in 2020 by Centro Penc Anthropology and Geoclinical Psychology, a non-profit organisation committed to offer support and empowerment to vulnerable migrant people, based in Palermo.

The non-profit organisation works in close contact with the Municipality of Palermo, and it can rely on the support of international organisations such as UNICEF, IRC, and SOS Children’s Villages.

The activities of Cosy Corners proved to be a great opportunity for women to express themselves, get to know one another and most importantly, to think about what kind of activities and skills could be useful to acquire and use in their daily life. The need for socialising more, skills improvement as well as the interest in deepening their knowledge on their rights and the available services for migrants emerged. Those moments were well received by the women, who said that they enjoyed them very much and they were eager to participate in the upcoming activities, and they were also curious to know what’s coming next based on their suggestions.

This month, the new suggested activities were presented to the women at WGSS. These activities are open to all women who are interested in participating, even though they did not take part in all the Cosy Corners, ensuring equal opportunities for all.

The PITCH project aims to build a common ground to support the design and implementation of local inclusion strategies addressed to migrant women, based on a personalised, participatory, and multi-stakeholder approach. CESIE as the coordinator of the PITCH project has been working on co-designing a model, that will be adjusted into 7 local strategies, and implemented with migrant women in Italy, Greece, Slovenia, Spain, Cyprus, Lithuania, and Sweden, which are part of the PITCH consortium, showing powerful collaboration and alignment to the PITCH values so far. The cooperation among partners, as well as the strategic participation of the municipalities from the countries involved, will lead on the one hand to enhanced socio-economic inclusion of migrant women and increased interaction between them and the host society; on the other hand, it will bring to sustainable collaborations and increased readiness of organisations, institutions, and relevant stakeholders to tackle inclusion issues in the future.

Stay tuned for more news about the PITCH project!

CESIE, Italy: info@cesie.org