ENSA General Assembly 2011: Social Inclusion Report & Network Activities

1. ENSA GENERAL ASSEMBLY Klagenfurt 7-8 June 2011 Social Inclusion network 2010 - 2011 report of activities

2. Overview • Social inclusion represents one of the pillars of European society, as it is the foundation for social cohesion and development • It represents an area of major work for local authorities who can learn and improve services from joint work and sharing good practices • In the current year, participation of civil society, volunteer work and combating poverty are high in the EU agenda • Social inclusion and economic inclusion and empowerment are critical in times of global crisis and demographic changes

3. ENSA INCLUSION • In a diverse and changing society, inclusion of different categories of persons has been the focus of activities: • Migrants • Minorities • Ageing people • Other groups at risk • Inclusion is in fact a cross- thematic group, whose approach intersects with the other groups, the activities have been: • Networking • Search for partners • Project implementation • Project design

4. Joint EC-UN Initiative on migration and development • Networking and participation of local authorities • Mapping of good practices on M&D of EU and third country local authorities • Mobilization of a network of local authorities • Peer review and draft of policy recommendations to local authorities • Publication of a final report and high-level conference held in Brussels at the CoR (November 24th,2010)

5. + RESPECT • + RESPECT : participation and anti discrimination awareness raising of ROMA people in Europe • Focus on regional and local authorities • Works on: • knowledge and capacity building of authorities by building participatory tools for inclusion and participation of ROMA people • Development of education curricula for schools • Awareness for media professionals • Empowerment of ROMA communities • Multimedia communication tools to combat anti-ROMA feelings and raise awareness

6. Areas of common interest • Sharing good practices on social inclusion • Networking with other regions and experiences (links to different projects working on sharing and transferring practice: PEOPLE, G4G, DART) • Organization of conference in March, in Venice concurrently to promote ENSA in the +Respect project) • More joint project design enlarging target groups (people of all walks of life affected by the crisis, including families) 2 projects awaiting for approval • Synergies with other thematic networks