From 2018 Additess is part of the EU funded H2020 project “ICT Enabled Public Services for Migration – MIICT” https://www.miict.eu/ .
MIICT was conceived with the goal of designing, developing and deploying tools that address the challenge of migrant integration. In service of this goal, the project undertakes to co-create improved ICT-enabled services with migrants, refugees, public sector services, NGOs (Non-Governmental-Organisations) and other interest groups.
From the 10th till the 13th of April 2019, MIICT project has launched its second pilot in Cyprus and more in particular in the city of Nicosia, bringing together more than fifty participants in total for 3 consecutive days, including migrants, refugees, asylum seekers, local officials, LEA Officers, representatives from the social welfare and national/international NGOs (Non-Governmental-Organisations) as well as subject matter experts.
The project is conceived with the goal of designing, developing and deploying tools that address the challenge of migrant integration through the co-creation of improved ICT-enabled services with migrants/refugees, public sector services, NGOs and other interest groups. Cyprus is one of the three selected pilot locations where the project conducted a series of co-design and cocreation three-day sessions applying in three distinctive groups (a. 14 beneficiaries – migrants/refugees, b. 23 representatives of NGOs and subject matter experts as well as c. 9 representatives from the public sector) a highly qualitative approach of focus groups methodology. The whole procedure was coordinated by the Project Coordinator, Sheffield Hallam University and facilitated by CARITAS and ENGOMI (the municipality of Engomi), in cooperation with Additess, KEMEA and LAUREA.
During the three days of the workshop, each of the 3 Focus groups, invited by Caritas and Engomi, after being informed about the scope and rational of the project and after having provided their written informed consent, they voluntarily shared their experiences, expressed their opinions, and generally discussed openly about the general challenges that they face in their daily activities, each one from their personal point of view. The resulted data were collected and prioritized in several ways, including apart from the open discussion, also mind-mapping, storyboarding, questionnaires and facilitator observation, which were identical to each Focus group so as to for the scientific cohesion of the methodology to be ensured. The final results from these Focus groups will be utilized along with the outcomes of the other 2 pilot locations (Spain and Italy) to define the main problematic areas where the projects development can facilitate improvement and implement change.