Alternatives to Detention: The MADE REAL Project

Guest post by Alice Bloomfield, Project Manager of MADE REAL (Making Alternatives to Detention in Europe a Reality by Exchanges, Advocacy and Learning Project) at the Odysseus Academic Network for legal studies on immigration and asylum in Europe.

The Odysseus Academic Network for legal studies on immigration and asylum in Europe is leading a project entitled ‘Making Alternatives to Detention in Europe a Reality by Exchanges, Advocacy and Learning’ (MADE REAL). The project involves partner NGOs in thirteen EU countries and will run for eighteen months, from September 2013 to February 2015. The objectives of the MADE REAL project are to:

• address the knowledge and implementation gap concerning alternatives to detention for asylum seekers in the EU, paying particular attention to vulnerable asylum seekers; and
• assist Member States in the transposition of the recast Reception Conditions Directive and to enhance the use of alternatives to detention.

The project activities include research in six EU countries (Austria, Belgium, Lithuania, Slovenia, and Sweden), leading to a synthesis report due in June 2014; the drafting of an EU training module; two-day training workshops in seven other countries (Bulgaria, France, Greece, Hungary, Malta, the Netherlands, and Slovakia) countries; and advocacy and communication activities at both national and EU levels.

The first newsletter of the project is now available. For more information about MADE REAL, please consult the project website.

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