The Project - Our Partnership

Coventry City Council is the lead authority for MiFriendly Cities and is overseeing the project implementation whilst also having an active role in the programme. Coventry is a proud multicultural city – with 33% of the 360,100 people who live here being from ethnic minority backgrounds – and our involvement in this project affirms the Council’s on-going commitment to embracing diversity, building community cohesion, improving the quality of life for its residents, and creating new jobs and infrastructure.

Coventry is set to become UK City of Culture in 2021, is a recognised International City of Peace and Reconciliation, and is home to major UK employers – including Jaguar Land Rover and Severn Trent – and two award-winning universities.

Interserve is the only corporate organisation within the partnership. Interserve is passionate about social inclusion and social mobility. As a major West Midlands employer we want use this passion to offer work placements to participants of the programme, which will hopefully lead to future employment opportunities. Interserve will also undertake mentoring sessions with participants.

As a large national employer and more specifically a large West Midlands employer, alongside our passion for social inclusion and mobility, we aim to leverage this presence and passion to engage with other West Midlands employers with regards to the benefits of the programme, seeking wider engagement in the programme and thus creating additional opportunities for participants.

Working with other programme partners, we also create an employer’s guide, which will contain advice and guidance for employers when considering recruiting refugees and migrants. It will also contain the latest employment law guidance, which will be continually reviewed and updated as required. This will be available in a digital format.

Birmingham City Council’s primary involvement in the MiFriendly Cities project is through the work packages on Active Citizenship and MiFriendly Jobs. The Council will deliver drop in employability sessions, will contribute to careers guidance and will deliver a Share my Language model for voluntary and informal English language practice for migrants and refugees. They will also be setting up a Community Repair Café in order to deliver Community Home Makeovers for vulnerable residents. Birmingham City Council also has a project management role in the project; managing the delivery of activities under the Active Citizenship work package. Birmingham is the largest local authority in Europe with the youngest population. It is also a place where superdiversity and migration are part of everyday life. The council has commitments under the Vulnerable Persons Resettlement Scheme, the dispersal of Asylum Seekers, and towards Unaccompanied Asylum Seeking Children under the National Transfer Scheme. Birmingham City Council has recently consulted on a new Community Cohesion strategy and has been a City of Sanctuary for several years.

Migrant Voice works to develop the skills, capacity and confidence of migrants, including asylum seekers and refugees, to tell our stories in the media and civil society to counteract xenophobia, and develop understanding and support for migrants’ rights. MV will be running ‘the Media Lab’: group media training and one-one mentoring with media experts and journalists to support the production of videos, photos, articles, and social media as well as provide opportunities to speak out in the media.

Migration Work is a not-for-profit consultancy set up to help communities, practitioners and policy-makers to respond to migration, in ways that ensure both migrant and ‘host’ communities can benefit from this process and move towards integration. We are leading the communications work and will make sure that we learn from innovation across Europe and share anything we learn from our activities far and wide. We will be supporting migrants in the West Midlands to pitch for funding for new ideas that will facilitate integration and benefit the whole community.

CRMC is a hub of excellence for refugees, asylum seekers and migrants, the centre enables them to feel safe, supported and empowered to aid their integration. To help refugees and migrants to make the UK their new safe home, and enable them to become contributing members of society as part of the community and economy. CRMC have over 20 years’ experience of working directly with  Asylum seekers, refugees and migrants and their main objective is to provide pivotal services that empower communities to make informed decisions to  enable them to fulfil their full potential.

This project will enable this to happen on a regional scale, and CRMC’s role is to provide the client participants for all aspects of the project as well as being involved in the delivery of every aspect of the project.

RMC will provide a holistic integration service and support which is underpinned by sustainable employment, healthy lifestyle advice, knowledge sharing and ESOL provision.

The Centre for Trust, Peace and Social Relations (CTPSR) undertakes innovative, impactful, world-class research that enables dialogue and builds trust in order to foster peaceful relations and strengthen human security. CTPSR will lead the evaluation of MiFriendly Cities and will support students to acquire new skills and accreditation through its Digital fabrication Laboratory, pop up furniture factory and health champion training, delivered by the faculty of Health and Life Science.

The City of Wolverhampton Council has a long history of welcoming people from all over the world to start a new life in the West Midlands. As part of being a City of Sanctuary, the Council is working to improve the skills and employability of migrants through a new pop-up furniture factory in the city. This investment will enable participants to learn new skills or upskill and contribute to home-makeovers in the region. City of Wolverhampton will benefit from a range of new programmes to improve opportunities, employability and the well being of its migrant communities.

CUSE offers businesses with economic and social benefit the opportunity to work with the University whilst also helping to develop the entrepreneurial skills of students, staff and alumni. CUSE Mifriendly cities activity will be targeted at promoting, raising awareness of and building the market for refugee and migrant social enterprises within the West Midlands.

Urban Innovative Actions (UIA) is an Initiative of the European Union that provides urban areas throughout Europe with resources to test new and unproven solutions to address urban challenges.