P-E-A-C-E’22 (A Partnership for non-formal Education to Adults in pursuit of the peaceful Community Empowerment)

The projects’ overall goal was to look at the Social Economy (SE) and its already existing tools to foster more peaceful and inclusive communities, building the capacity of SE organisations in fac...

The projects’ overall goal was to look at the Social Economy (SE) and its already existing tools to foster more peaceful and inclusive communities, building the capacity of SE organisations in facilitating the inclusion of migrants and refugees and creating long-lasting inter-communities relationships in the receiving countries. Primarily, the project aimed at creating learning opportunities and a space for exchange of strategies and practices across organisations responding to the migrant crisis in Europe, specifically building the capacity of local organisations in Lithuania with the tools and methodologies characteristic of social and solidarity economy to scale up their activities and make their work more effective. In the long term, the project intends to increase the capacity of social economy organisations in Lithuania and across Europe to support the socio-economic empowerment of migrants and refugees, and increase the chance of a smoother integration into the local communities. Additionally, the project put a strong emphasis on awareness raising dedicated to demonstrating that the Social Economy is a resourceful sector to discover new approaches in peacebuilding.

The PEACE’22 project was structured in three phases: the initial research, which provided a framework that identified the links between building peaceful and inclusive societies and the SE, supported with a collection of cases, needs and challenges in Lithuania and across Europe. The second phase of the project – the peer learning – was based on the outcomes, needs and goals set through the first reflective phase, and provided the participating organisations and practitioners with a safe space for mutual exchange of practices, perspectives and lessons learned, while also creating a spare for future international, national and local collaborations between organisations. Finally, the third phase was the creation of the handbook, which represented a further opportunity to sediment and share the learning outcomes, promoting an intersectoral and multi-perspective approach that will improve working practices and better prepare the organisations involved in performing their support actions with migrants and refugees. The awareness raising campaign was conducted by the consortium throughout the implementation of the project activities, to ensure the outreach both at national and international level of the project’s outputs.

The main outputs of the projects were a field and desk research on the needs and challenges faced at national level by Lithuanian organisations engaged in migrants socio-economic inclusion and an European level research on good practices from SE organisations. The output document highlights a set of challenges and needs and identifies 5 good practices from Germany, Romania, Cyprus, Georgia and Poland. Further, the 4 Peer Learning sessions built the capacity of 10 organisations (5 Lithuanian and 5 European) with social innovation tools and methodologies. This knowledge and practice exchange contributed to the creation of new practices, awareness and collaboration opportunities that can boost the creation of innovative tools and methodologies within the SE ecosystem with the purpose of job creation in Lithuanian communities. These methodologies and outcome initiatives were formalised in the PEACE’22 Handbook, which was broadly disseminated at national and EU level. The creation of new opportunities and intersectoral and international collaboration enhanced the access of local organisations to financial resources, established local and international partnerships among SE organisations, some formalised in submitted projects.