Community Matching and Legal Clinics for Statelessness
Promoting assistance and integration for refugees and stateless individuals. Building on the experiences since 2021, the project will be implemented in 11 cities: Turin, Milan, Parma, Ravenna, Padua, Bergamo, Bologna, Rome, Naples, Bari, and Palermo.
Starting date
1 January 2025Duration
12 monthsRealized by:
UNHCR ItalyObjectives
Build local communities founded on values of diversity, inclusion, and solidarity by promoting opportunities for interaction and exchange between Italian citizens and refugees.
Develop and disseminate a model through the creation of a methodological Toolkit, advocacy, and training for operators and institutions to adopt Community Matching practices.
Ensure that stateless individuals in Italy have access to qualified legal representation, facilitating the recognition of their stateless status and promoting their social integration.
Train university students and legal professionals on the protection of stateless individuals and existing procedures in the Italian context, thereby improving their capacity to provide appropriate legal support.
The project aims to strengthen the inclusion of refugees in Italy, building on work initiated in 2021 with the support of the 8×1000 funds from the Italian Buddhist Institute Soka Gakkai, while extending its scope to include stateless individuals.
Currently, Italy hosts thousands of refugees and individuals with international or temporary protection status, for whom integration represents one of the main challenges. Integration encompasses not only access to housing and employment but also social and cultural inclusion, achievable only through the active involvement of local communities. This effort is essential to build meaningful personal and social relationships that enable refugees to truly become part of the communities that host them.
For stateless individuals, integration is even more complex due to significant barriers in accessing their rights. Despite Italy’s ratification of the UN Conventions on Statelessness (1954 and 1961), challenges remain in recognizing stateless status, leaving many individuals without access to fundamental rights.
The project addresses these challenges through two programmatic actions:
- Community Matching (CM):
This program aims to promote integration and social cohesion by matching refugees, individuals with temporary protection status, and asylum seekers with volunteers from local communities. Through relationships based on trust and mutual support, refugees receive assistance with housing and employment solutions, learning the local language and culture, and navigating their host community. The program has demonstrated a significant impact in fostering social inclusion and building more cohesive communities. - Legal Clinics for Statelessness:
In collaboration with a network of Italian universities, this program provides legal assistance to stateless individuals, ensuring access to status determination procedures and training new legal professionals. It strengthens the legal expertise of students while addressing the needs of stateless individuals.
These programs not only meet the immediate needs of refugees and stateless individuals but also lay the groundwork for lasting social cohesion by actively involving local communities and Italian institutions.
