It was on Tuesday, the 22nd, that more than a dozen organizations got together to think about and build the community sponsorship strategy in Portugal. This time the Gathering took place at ISCAP in Porto, bringing together technicians from organizations and academics who work in welcoming and integration of refugees. This 3rd Gathering worked on building and maintaining the autonomy of refugees, focusing on the transition period after the end of the program. This is an issue of extreme importance, being one of the main goals of community sponsorship - the autonomy and independence of the sponsored refugee families. However, achieving this autonomy proves to be one of the most difficult elements to achieve. The work of the participants in this 3rd Gathering made it possible to identify barriers and potential challenges in achieving autonomy, as well as to discuss different strategies for the sponsor group to be able to help build and maintain the families autonomy.
The contributions were extremely useful for the construction of the first community sponsorship program in Portugal and will be included in the elaboration of a guide for autonomy, to be released in the first quarter of next year. The 4th Gathering will continue this process of joint construction, following a participatory and holistic approach and will take place, as usual, in June 2023.
