EUROCITIES working groups on Employment and on Migration, as well as representatives of CONNECTION project and interested cities, got together, hosted by the city of Riga, for a mutual learning event. The focus of the event was how to engage vulnerable women with migrant and refugee backgrounds in the labour market and how to mitigate the challenges they face.

Since the invasion, Latvia has taken in over 40,000 refugees from Ukraine, many of whom remain in Riga, where a refugee support centre was, at one point, seeing over 1000 people every day. The host city showed other good practices, including a Ukrainian school, NGO cooperatives working for integration of migrants, entrepreneurs. The Riga examples were presented by the city mayor and deputy mayor, the Ukrainian ambassador to Latvia, civil society organizations and municipal enterprises.

Participating cities were engaged in workshops, one of which – the gender dimension of integration strategies – was conducted by the CONNECTION integration champions. The mutual learning event was also attended by representatives of DG Employment, DG Home, OECD, UNHCR.

The event finished with a strategy development workshop, developing solutions that can be applicable to other cities working to integrate women from Ukraine, and outlining advocacy efforts at European level.

CONNECTION project: CONNEcting Cities Towards Integration action, is co-funded by the European Union’s Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund.