A Shared Journey - Promoting Intercultural Media Spaces

The aim of New Neighbours is to highlight the positive social and economic contributions made by migrants and refugees throughout communities across Europe. By promoting direct participation in media production and intercultural dynamics, it is hoped to foster tolerance and acceptance for migrants and refugees in EU member states.

New Neighbours works with:

    • Public service media, 
    • Community media
    • Civil society organisations,

to challenge stereotypes and expose commonly held myths, placing migrant voices at the heart of discussions on migration and delivering innovative messaging in order to help promote the integration of migrants into local communities.

New Neighbours raises awareness through the use of:

New Neighbours also builds stronger links between media and community organisations. This improves the flow of information between one another and contributes to deliver the message to a wider and more diverse audience.

Public Service Media

Nine public service media, from allover Europe (Belgium, Croatia, Czech Republic, Germany, Italy, Portugal, The Netherlands, Slovenia, Spain) joined the project and committed to each produce a documentary.

People who had to leave their home and  integrate into a new neighbourhood, new village, new city, new society are what’s the documentaries are about. And while, migrants and refugees are at the core of the story,   so are the locals: those who have to accept new neighbours. 

The challenging process of integration, acceptance and the clash between  hopes and fears of the settling period, is tangible in each of the nine documentaries.

Throughout the project various activities will unite representatives from public service media, civil society organisations and community media, to allow share of knowledge, to meet and improve their connections.

Community media

Several community radios and TVs in Europe have adopted a multilingual programming approach to build bridges between communities and cultures which co-exist, but do not necessarily communicate with one another.

The New Neighbours project is working with community media to develop innovative formats which are both inclusive and empowering. Participants will devise and share effective approaches for intercultural and multilingual productions through workshops and trainings. 

The aim is to put in place at least three new intercultural editorial groups based on the good-practice examples presented in the “Spaces of Inclusion” study.

Through learning exchanges and capacity-building, the new groups will be supported in developing and rolling out specific programming strands that meet audience needs and draw on creative talent from within the migrant communities. 

The project partners will also help to develop participatory models, working with community media to consider effective ways of involving local authorities, associations, schools and adult education institutions in programming initiatives.

Civil society organisations

In an age where community involvement and partnerships with civil society  are increasingly being acknowledged as indispensable for democracy, media too are more and more recognising civil society organisations (CSOs) as a source of alternative information, story ideas and experts. And while in pre-Internet era CSOs had to wait for journalists to approach them, the WWW gave the opportunity to CSOs to use new media platforms to put the voices of civil society through.

Through New Neighbours, the project partners will train civil society organisations to run their own campaigns as well as to effectively communicate with journalists to spread constructive stories about migrants and refugees.

Through five national Media Skills Trainings for CSOs in Croatia, Italy, Slovenia, Spain and Germany, civil society activists will have the chance to combine media advocacy with campaigning involving migrants and refugees as well as locals.

Duration of the project
From January 2019 to March 2021