Introduction to the REPAIR Project
For people forced to leave their families and flee persecution, armed conflict or other situations of violence, family reunification is often the only way to regain family life. Although the process appears straightforward on paper, all too often reuniting families through family reunification remains a difficult and lengthy process. Since 2022 the Reunification Pathways for Integration (REPAIR) project has sought not only to support families going through the family reunification process, but also to listen to them, amplify their voices, and apply that learning to adapt and improve services.
Co-funded by the European Union’s Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund (AMIF) the three-year project has been led by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) in partnership with the Austrian Red Cross, British Red Cross, French Red Cross and Slovenian Red Cross.
Activities in the project have included supporting families to access legal advice on the family reunification process, assisting the collection of documents for visa applications and liaising with relevant authorities and embassies to facilitate reunification, supporting access to information about family reunification and life in the countries they will be moving to, and practical integration support upon and after arrival.
Partners have also sought to reach out to and engage with existing diaspora associations and groups recognising the vast pool of resources, skills and experiences these represent, as well as conducting participatory needs assessments of the current family reunification process in each partner-country to better understand families’ experiences and how services, and the procedure itself, could be improved.
This online report sets out some of the key highlights, findings and resources from the REPAIR project, including a summary of the needs assessment, and 15 recommendations identified by partners to improve families’ experience of reunification.
In addition to this report, a publicly available Toolkit has also been compiled helping share learning and bringing together many of the key resources developed as part of, or which have proved useful during, the REPAIR project.