Mombasa - The International Organization for Migration (IOM) trained (3-4/8) 25 representatives from 22 Kenyan and regional based UN agencies, international and local aid organizations as well as migrant community associations on the organization’s Integrated Approach to Reintegration.

 The training which happened in Kenya’s coastal city of Mombasa highlighted lessons from the EU-IOM Joint Initiative for Migrant Protection and Reintegration programme in the Horn of Africa region and focused on strengthening the coordination of services to support the sustainable reintegration of migrant returnees. 

Participants discussed existing practices, challenges as well as opportunities involved in providing assistance relevant to the reintegration of migrants, including children, at individual, community and structural levels. The discussions also focused on social, economic and psychosocial dimensions as well as partnerships among relevant actors.   

“As a former migrant worker and the co-founder of a migrant worker-led organization, attending the Reintegration Handbook Training has been very insightful and invaluable.  I look forward to putting what I learned from the training into practice through my work,” said Malcolm Bidali, the Co-founder of Migrant Defenders.Org.

Mitsue Pembroke, Deputy Regional Programme Coordinator for the EU-IOM Joint Initiative for Migrant Protection and Reintegration noted that the participation of various stakeholders in this Reintegration Handbook training represents an important step for IOM as the organizations strives to increase referrals of migrants to relevant services. 

“Indeed, if we want to aim for sustainable reintegration, it is clear that one actor or agency alone cannot achieve this. It requires strong commitment and collaboration from a wide range of stakeholders, each with a specific role to play,” said IOM’s Pembroke.

The training was organized with the support of the European Union (EU) through the EU-IOM Knowledge Management Hub initiative. 

The EU-IOM Knowledge Management Hub was established in 2017 under the Pilot Action on Voluntary Return and Sustainable, Community-Based Reintegration funded by the European Union. It is aimed at assisting the implementation of the EU-IOM Actions in support of migrant protection and reintegration by ensuring coherent voluntary return and reintegration approaches, including through capacity-building activities and cross-regional experience sharing workshops; harmonising monitoring and evaluation activities; setting up knowledge management tools; and producing knowledge products. As part of this, it is rolling-out a reintegration training programme, based on the Reintegration Handbook. 

For more information, contact Joy Paone jpaone@iom.int or Mitsue Pembroke mpembroke@iom.int