Poland: 3rd Refugee Council meeting within NIEM and V4NIEM organized by IPA

On Tuesday, 23rd November the Institute of Public Affairs held the third online meeting with the Refugee Council formed within the framework of NIEM and V4NIEM project, co–funded by the International Visegrad Fund.

The Refugee Council consists of nine members who are distinguished activists and refugee community leaders in Poland, sharing their knowledge and experience of forced migration during the regular thematic meetings. All members have a long professional and personal experience as activists and community leaders, and are involved in various actions and initiatives for intercultural dialogue and integration, within the national and international networks.
The purpose of establishing the Council was to strengthen the impact of people with refugee experience on the ongoing discussions about the shape of the integration policies in Poland, their outcomes and improvements, as well as to strengthen their impact on integration research.

The last meeting of the Council focused on the access to healthcare for persons granted international protection and persons undergoing the asylum procedure. The key points of the debate on. The goal of the meeting was to share experiences and practices related to the housing public healthcare access in Poland, to formulate recommendations, as well as to search for effective initiatives to increase the quality of services provided to people with refugee experience. The Council members highlighted the challenges that people already granted protection and asylum seekers face while confronted with Polish healthcare system due to gaps in medical and hospital administrative staff training or insufficiently developed current solutions.
As a result of the meeting, and particularly the insightful debate that has taken place, the Refugee Council has developed the recommendations on possible changes and improvements to public healthcare services provided to people with refugee experience. The list of recommendations is planned to be presented at the upcoming meeting of the NIEM National Coalition that will also be focused on the issues related to public healthcare system in Poland.
During the upcoming meetings, the Council will be discussing further selected areas of integration as well as it will continue designing the bottom-up proposals for changes, in order to improve the situation of people with refugee experience in Poland.

Project ‘V4NIEM: Visegrad Countries National Integration Evaluation Mechanism’ is co–funded by the International Visegrad Fund.

The project is co-financed by the Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund in the frame of the project ‘National Integration Evaluation Mechanism. Measuring and improving integration of beneficiaries of international protection’.