The 3rd Coordination Meeting for the project AwArtMali – Awareness raising and info through Art on irregular migration risks in Mali took place in Nicosia, Cyprus, on October 3rd and 4th 2019.
Third coordination meeting in Cyprus
The meeting was an important occasion for external evaluator Vanessa Conigli to present and discuss the Mid-term evaluation report and the monitoring plan for the project.
Mrs Conigli’s intervention brought to light relevant points to discuss, allowing the partners to further program the project activities, which have since August proceeded to launch the TAMA 365 communication campaign, which aims to make the Malian youth – as well as those willing to migrate or about to migrate – aware of the risks connected to irregular migration, and to disseminate information on the possibilities offered by the country.
For this reason, and thanks to the precious collaboration of the Malian communication agency Wabaria, it was possible to develop a communication strategy, addressed at the urban centre of Kati, at specific neighbourhoods in Bamako and at the rural villages of Kati’s Cercle. The dissemination campaign consists of radio advertisements on local radios, promotional posters disseminated across villages and in the city, informative leaflets handed out in the main schools of Kati and the Cercle and in community centres.
At the same time, a project App and Blog (www.tama365.org) have been designed and developed to collect specific information regarding the migratory phenomenon – directly told by diaspora protagonists – as well as on the opportunities to support development in Mali, and on the possibilities to stay and live in the country.
Throughout the project meeting, the partners analysed and discussed the contents for the application and the blog. These contents were informed thanks to the field work carried out by Le Tonus (the local partner) and Congenia, that collected and elaborated the results of a research on the development opportunities present on Malian territory, and organized them in a Catalogue of Opportunities.
Tamat and Le Tonus presented and discussed the outline of a strategy for network building among strategic stakeholders, identified within the project and able to grant its sustainability in time. The strategy foresees the carry out of 5 different thematic workshops, focusing on the topics of information and awareness raising with regard to development opportunities in Mali, of training and apprenticeship, of agriculture, of enterprises and possibilities for self-employment, of the international cooperation organizations’ and agencies’ role, as well as of the role of other institutions.
The workshops will also foresee dialogue and exchange with the Malian diaspora in Italy, that will participate from remote, with the objective to invest energies and guide competences to build a solid network of people and entities, able to carry out congruent and effective actions to build development opportunities in Mali. This modality means to give long-term continuity to this network.
The first workshop, focused on the theme of information and awareness raising with regard to the opportunities to offer to Malian youth, will be organized and managed by the Malian partner Le Tonus, and will take place on October 10th in Kati in the Council Room. The workshop will be attended also by a delegation from Tamat, constituted of project coordinator Simone Foresi and international cooperation and development expert Nadia Zangarelli, present in Mali on a project coordination mission.
What is AwArtMali
AwArtMali aims to contribute to the change of perceptions and behaviour of Malian people looking to irregular migration towards the EU as the only solution to their socio-economic problems.
The action is intended to reach and involve Malian people in order to make them aware and inform them on the risks of irregular migration, on legal alternatives and on economic opportunities available in their country with a multistakeholder approach consisting in awareness campaign and information activities.