Project ICE Kick-Off Meeting Highlights Committments, Actions and Progress

Since the launch of the European Union funded Inform, Connect, Empower: Capacity Building for Charter Agents of Change (ICE) project on 1 March this year, we are now well on our way to implementing the first key steps of the project across 11 country groups.

In May, British in Europe country group leads from Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Luxembourg, Malta, Spain as well as a volunteer from Brits in Sweden joined the Project ICE Core Team alongside representatives from the European Commission in Brussels for the official kick-off of the ICE project.

With the project focused on examining the implementation of the EU Charter on Fundamental Rights by looking into how the EU/UK Withdrawal Agreement (WA) is being applied to more than 1.2 million UK citizens living in the EU, the meeting marks a significant first step in our ongoing commitment to strengthening our bank of knowledge, problem-solving, advocacy and communication skills. Indeed, as The Local noted in a recent article, Project ICE will help empower British citizens all over the EU to advocate for their post-Brexit rights. This approach is central to us building on the partnerships we have already established that enable us to provide support to UK citizens resident in the EU as the number of cases decreases but their complexity increases.

ICE Project Overview

The ICE Project comprises four work packages – project management, monitoring and evaluation; the Charter, WA, mentoring and problem solving; capacity building for effective advocacy and media influencing; and communication, awareness raising and toolboxes for rights.

Initiatives currently underway

One of the initiatives already underway is a comprehensive mentoring programme for Project ICE country volunteers across Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Malta, Luxembourg, Spain and Sweden, which will run for the duration of the project. Country group volunteers taking part in the programme will additionally benefit from online advocacy training as needed. The training is scheduled to take place throughout the summer. In addition to receiving individual mentoring and advocacy training, volunteers and advocates will also have direct access to a range of tools for addressing individual and systemic problems related to the implementation of the WA and Charter rights. Experience gathered through this ‘living lab’ approach will also help to build on and improve these tools during the life of the project.

The importance of mentoring

With work already progressing in each area, Jane Golding, lead on the mentoring work package outlined the significance of support which is already being delivered at country level. “A key aspect of our project is providing meaningful, targeted mentoring support. This is already starting to yield concrete benefits for different country group teams, including in Spain and Germany. Ultimately, we want to ensure that all country teams improve their capacity, and their knowledge of the WA and the Charter, as well as other legal, political and media tools. This will enable them to support UK WA beneficiaries as well as pass on their skills and knowledge to others in their groups.”

Mentoring, advocacy and communications for impact

The interaction between, the mentoring, advocacy and communications work packages will also be vital in addressing the wider awareness and knowledge gap as advocacy lead Fiona Godfrey pointed out. “We recognise that the Charter, the Withdrawal Agreement and their interrelationship are not necessarily understood widely by UK citizens resident in the EU. Our deep knowledge and experience in these areas puts us in a unique position to bridge that gap by building out the advocacy and engagement skills amongst our volunteers and taking a more concerted approach in our communications.”

The nature of the projects demands that we continue to provide the same, and indeed improved levels of general advisory and other support to the 1.2 million UK citizens residing in Europe as we build capacity and expertise in this important area. Delivering on our commitment to ensure your rights are maintained and our voices heard means that we will be placing extra emphasis on our communications – to our volunteers, advocates and partners, and most importantly to you.

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