KOPIN's Support Programme for Refugee Women in Malta

Since mid-2011, the Maltese NGO KOPIN, together with its partners the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR Malta) and the Agency for the Welfare of Asylum Seekers (AWAS), is supporting refugee women by means of various empowerment and integration activities.

Financed through the European Refugee Fund (ERF), the US Government and the UNHCR, KOPIN’s team of project managers, programme officers, cultural mediators and legal & psychological experts offer activities to all refugee women residing in Malta.

Activities are being provided throughout the week in all open migrants’ centres having female residents, related to education (literacy, numeracy, language, health, sexuality, nutrition, etc.), vocational training, skills training, recreation and socialisation, including outings to various places in Malta and Gozo. KOPIN also involves experts from various fields, such as the Migrants’ Health Unit and the National Commission for the Promotion of Equality (NCPE) , to provide input to focus groups on issues such as sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) and female genital mutilation (FGM). KOPIN also engages numerous Maltese and international volunteers and interns to support the implementing team, who have the chance to actively engage in this social field and learn more about the situation of refugees in Malta.

In the near future, KOPIN and its partners also aim to reach out to refugee women residing within the communities and also to plan for future migrants’ support programmes, based on this project’s activities and the lessons learnt from it.

For further information, please contact info@kopin.org.

Information provided by KOPIN