Our Projects

Since July 2019, the Cyprus Refugee Council is implementing the EPIM-funded project on ATD in Cyprus “Safeguarding Alternatives to Detention: Implementing Case Management in Cyprus”, which builds on the progress and achievements established under the 2017-2019 Pilot, with the main objectives of reducing immigration detention, promoting engagement based ATD and contributing to the growing evidence and momentum on ATD at a national and regional level.

In regard to activities, the project team provides individualised case management to persons that are in detention and/or at risk of detention including asylum seekers, rejected asylum seekers, irregular TCNs, and non-removable.The implementation of the project, and specifically case management, provides the Cyprus Refugee Council with further qualitative and quantitative data to demonstrate to the relevant authorities that the proposed model can lead to higher engagement rates and case resolution. Through the implementation of the project, the Cyprus Refugee Council aims to pave the path towards generating ATD practices or policies for specific groups as well as to outline systemic gaps and the ineffectiveness of coercive-based approaches.

Safeguarding Alternatives to Immigration Detention is a project funded by the European Programme for Integration and Migration (EPIM).

The project aims to support and promote the empowerment and rehabilitation of people who have been subjected to torture, inhumane, degrading treatment or punishment in their country of origin and/or in Cyprus. Victims are mainly refugees and asylum seekers, as well as and at times victims of trafficking and undocumented migrants.

Expert Support to Victims of Torture is a project funded by the United Nations Voluntary Fund for Victims of Torture. 

The project aims to provide psychosocial support to vulnerable individuals. Through the Project, two psychologists and one social worker provided assistance and support to vulnerable individuals including men, women, and children.

The project is supported by the Global Being Fund of RSF Social Finance.

The project aims to offer psychosocial support LGBTIQ+ persons of concern and aims to enhance their self-reliance by enabling and empowering their participation in social life, heal and create bonds with others in the host community. This will be achieved through the provision of one-on-one direct psychosocial support to LGBTIQ+ refugees and asylum seekers, includes assistance to access social rights, integration, individual counselling; Organizing psychoeducation groups sessions focusing on mental health and the development of skills (e.x social skills, assertive communication, self-esteem/worth/confidence, sexual health);  Linking LGBTIQ+ refugees with the national LGBTIQ+ community and facilitating collaboration and building of relations by organising formal or informal meetings between individuals/community leaders or associations.

The Supporting the LGBTIQ+ community project is made possible by the Julia Taft Refugee Fund from the U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration (PRM).

Building bridges and capacity among CSOs and refugee/migrant led groups providing services to vulnerable groups in the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot community (Bridging Services) project aims to strengthen the capacity and sustainability of CSOs and Refugee/Migrant Led organizations (MRLOs) that operate on both sides of the divide, offering services to vulnerable persons within refugee/migrant communities, such as victims of trafficking, torture, and gender-based violence.

The project proposes the development and delivery of training sessions promoting the adoption of interdisciplinary, multi-level, and holistic needs assessment methods for attending vulnerable refugees/migrants, as well as that of operating principles that ensure transparent and accountable governance among CSOs/MRLOs in the sector.

The Bridging Services project benefits from a grant under the Active Citizens Fund Cyprus programme, funded by Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway, through the EEA and Norway Grants 2014-2021.

The Rooting for Rights (R4R) project aims to prevent and address violations of human rights in the reception and detention of applicants of international protection.

It brings together four southern European NGOs leading in the field of refugee rights from Greece, Cyprus, Malta and Portugal along with the Greek National Commission for Human Rights who will promote the use of the EU Charter on Fundamental rights (“the Charter”) to protect the rights of applicants of international protection in their respective EU Member states.

More specifically, the project will:

a) Raise awareness and conduct advocacy with national and administrative authorities on the centrality of the Charter in policy developments (including national institutions, human rights bodies, state actors, and national Ombudspeople);
b) Build the capacity of law practitioners, civil society organizations and frontline staff to effectively use the Charter to support applicants of international protection in reception and detention systems (including justice practitioners with strategic litigation trainings, law enforcement officers and frontline staff working in reception centres);
c) Develop messaging to inform applicants of international protection of their rights and entitlements (information products will be developed and become available in targeted countries).

Overall, the project will lay the foundations for effective and sustainable improvements in the area of reception and advance the equal, nondiscriminatory protection of people’s rights to ensure no-one is left behind on EU soil.
This project is funded by the Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values (CERV) Programme of the European Commission.

The Project is funded by Choose Love and aims to increase the Cyprus Refugee Council’s capacity to provide social assistance to refugees and asylum seekers living in Cyprus. Support ranges from advice, information and mediation, on accessing medical care, education, and accommodation. The Project also supports integration activities and guidance to support beneficiaries in finding employment. This includes counselling with a social advisor and the development of a long-term plan that identifies solutions for successful employment integration e.g. language lessons, vocational training and accessing university.

“COALESCE – “Legal, psycho-social and economic empowerment for the integration of women third country nationals victims of human trafficking for sexual exploitation and abuse” is a project funded by the European Union’s Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund.

The project aims at providing gender-specific psycho-social, legal and economic support and assistance to third-country national women who are victims of human trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation; as well as developing synergies and complementarities in facilitating needs identification, assistance and support, and improving transnational cooperation amongst front line professionals and practitioners.

Through the planned activities within 2 years, the project will:

• Enhance integration of women TCN VoT through provision of assistance guided by a Gender-specific Integration Model (GeSIM) for legal and psychosocial assistance and economic empowerment
• Develop a practical working toolkit enhanced by input from affected women and specialized knowledge and recommendations for a sustainable gender-specific implementation EU guidelines and tools, influencing the work of service providers
• Promote national and transnational knowledge exchange between relevant actors on the benefits of and commitment to GESIM. Nurturing collaborative approaches benefitting trafficked women

The project is implemented in  Cyprus, Latvia, Belgium, Ireland, Germany, Lithuania and Italy.

Training Kit for Empowering Refugee-Led Community Organisations is a project funded by the European Union, under the Erasmus+ programme.

The main aim of the project is to see an improvement in the quality of enjoyment of human rights by refugees and is based on the idea of supporting the active inclusion of marginalised, vulnerable or excluded communities. The project seeks to strengthen refugee inclusion by supporting the empowerment of those refugees who want to play an active role in their communities and at the EU level.

To reach this objective, community needs, strengths and trends will be identified and the Training Kit will be produced.

The project aims to tackle the issue of underemployment of refugees, especially in highly skilled positions, and promote  their  access  to  the  labour market  by  facilitating  employment opportunities,  which  match their qualifications and skills during the pandemic period. The Covid-19 pandemic has hugely affected the everyday lives of people worldwide, but these impacts are compounded for vulnerable populations.

The project team will offer individual job counselling and career paths to enhance the employability of refugees, providing information and guidance while mapping the gaps of accessing high skilled jobs. The project has maximum duration 12 months.

The project aims to organise a series of 3 online workshops aiming to support initiatives of refugee-led community organizations and unofficial refugee-led groups in Cyprus. Enhancing the capacity of refugee-led community organizations and unofficial groups (non-registered NGOs) to self-organise and self-represent will strengthen the dialogue between and within refugee communities and host society.

The workshops will focus on the theme of “Setting up and Managing an Organisation” and will be divided in the following topics:

• Workshop 1: The legal aspects of registering a legal entity/NGO
• Workshop 2: How to manage an NGO and the obligations derived from the Cypriot legislation
• Workshop 3 : The importance of establishing the mission, vision, strategy planning and setting priorities of an NGO/entity

Find out more about the Workshops here and how to participate here.

This is a short term project funded by the Anna Lindh Foundation – Virtual Marathon for Dialogue Call, with implementation period from 19/05/2021 to  25/06/2021. This project is implemented by Cyprus Refugee Council in collaboration with Civil Society Advocates.

BeMyVoice invites everyone to jointly uphold the right of freedom of expression by transmitting the messages of people from another country through a variety of creative channels. The Project aims to elevate the human right of freedom of expression to a transnational sphere and unite citizens beyond borders around this common cause.

The workshops will focus on the following themes:

• Workshop 1: Participants are invited to submit anonymous statements and stories which will be circulated among Project partners
• Workshop 2: Participants are invited to use a variety of means of representations, including acting, songs, poems theatre, photography, crafts and designs in order to re-enact the anonymous statements and stories of other people from different countries.
• Workshop 3: The produces representations will be published widely and debated during local conferences.

The project aims to unite all networks of the Anna-Lindh Foundation, while 16 countries are officially participating in this partnership and will last for 11 months. This project is implemented in Cyprus by the Cyprus Refugee Council. This project funded by the Anna Lindh Foundation, with implementation period from 15/10/2020 to 20/08/2021.

More information on the Project can be found here.

The projects overall aim is to inform, support and encourage reporting of refugee women GBV victims by offering them access to specific support service. This project improves their access to support services and the capacity of professionals to assist these victims, by training, mutually learning and co-creating a new support service (a counseling method).

During the project duration, two resources were produced:

• Handbook on counselling asylum seeking and refugee women victims of gender-based violence

English (EN) – Deutsch (DE) – Finnish (FI) – Greek (EL) – Italian (IT) – Croatian (HR)

• Training Manual  – gender-based violence against refugee  asylum-seeking women:

English (EN) – Deutsch (DE) – Finnish (FI) – Greek (EL) – Italian (IT) – Croatian (HR)

The project “Co-creating a counseling method for refugee women gender-based violence victims” is an EU-funded project.

The project aims at developing and strengthening life and social skills of young asylum seekers and refugees (18-35 years old), in order to develop healthy ways of dealing with difficulties and deter them from developing addictive behaviours and habits, while supporting them with their integration.

The project is based on the implementation of a series of 12 interactive workshops, planned to take place in Cyprus by the end of 2018. Each workshop will follow a specific methodology, exploring identity and values, ways for self-reliance and dealing with difficult situations as well as strengthening skills to support in their integration into the host society.

The project is funded by the National Betting Agency and the Cyprus Youth Board.

The project aims to support asylum seekers and refugees in accessing vital services, such as the healthcare, social welfare services and employment during the COVID-19 pandemic. Within the framework of this project, our beneficiaries are provided with up-to-date information on the preventive measures announced by the government as well as offered assistance to cope with the effects of COVID-19. Additionally, the project also aims to raise awareness by developing, translating and disseminating accurate information on the situation of refugees in Cyprus.

The project is funded by the ReCOVer20 program of the Youth Board of Cyprus.

To enhance support for rehabilitation of torture survivor, CyRC’s professionals together with other experts from seven rehabilitation centers based in five EU member states developed an empowerment method (METS/ 7ROSES). The method was piloted with beneficiaries in diverse settings and backgrounds, including the torture survivors in Cyprus. At the end of the project, the methods and pilot results were disseminated widely through a European conference.

The project aims to improve the practices regarding the integration of asylum seekers and refugees into the labour market from the chain cooperation perspective, by integrating the employers in chain cooperation existing of the different competent administrations and supportive organisations.

The Employer Tailored Chain Cooperation (‘ETCC’) project is primed for structural changes in the 7 Member States from which the organisations stem. This change will be achieved through the creation of EU-wide applicable guidelines focusing on the 4 components of the chain (screening, gap bridging, matching and sustainability).

The EU-wide applicable guidelines will be a driver for structural change in the different Member States involved in the project. The primary target groups are staff of public employment organisations, asylum seekers reception organisations, employers federations and supportive organisations. All changes have to benefit the final target group of the project, which are asylum seekers, refugees and employers.

This project is funded by the European Union’s Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund.

ATTraCT+ (Transnational Cooperation and New Technologies to Train Social Workers on Trafficking in Human Beings) is a project funded by the European Union, under the Erasmus+ programme.

The project aims to develop and improve skills and knowledge of social workers and other relevant actors, in the field of the protection and support of human trafficking victims, through transnational, joint staff trainings as well as through development and implementation of digital training tools and other materials that will be designed to train social workers on the issue of trafficking and other related matters.

Improved capacities and knowledge of the social workers will positively influence their daily practice related to human trafficking which will lead to victims’ enhanced access to rights and, subsequently, to their social inclusion.

“Addressing housing needs of vulnerable asylum seekers and refugees in the community” is a 12-month project funded by the Julia Taft Refugee Fund/ US State Department Embassy in Nicosia.

The aim of the project is to reduce the risk of homelessness for vulnerable asylum seekers and holders of International Protection by identifying proper accommodation and conducting outreach to relevant actors to expand available housing options.

The project aims to approach stakeholders such as local authorities, municipalities and communities, welfare services, estate agencies and private home owners in order to encourage new methods of facilitating the renting of proper accommodation for vulnerable refugees in Cyprus, including asylum seekers and holders of International Protection, who find difficulty in navigating through the housing system in Cyprus.

This project is an EU funded project with seven expert refugee rehabilitation centers across Europe.

It aims to design and test an empowerment method for survivors of torture and victims of trafficking.The method and results will be presented through a Final Conference to all expert centers in Europe.

This project is co-funded by the European Union.

SAFE HOUSES  project aims to intervene to provide assistance and support for third-country national victims (TCNs) of trafficking in human beings arrived in Europe crossing the Central and Eastern Mediterranean Routes.

The General objective of the action is to support the  integration of women and girls who are third-country nationals and are victims of trafficking for the purpose of sexual  exploitation in transit migration areas in Italy, Cyprus, France and Spain.

This project is funded by the European Union’s Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund.