Moniheli has received a grant of 73 000 € from the SOLID Integration Fund to develop the political awareness and social participation of immigrants during the year 2012

Moniheli’s SOLID project will strengthen immigrant organisations and improve their social and political participation. The project promotes the training and launching of a consultation process among immigrant organisations. The project aims first and foremost to improve the participation of immigrants and their organisations to political activities, especially in the municipal elections 2012. During the project, training and opportunities for networking will be arranged for immigrant actors. The training will concentrate on developing political preparedness as well as improving the consultation process for example between organisations and various candidates of different political parties.

The project will support the improvement of the immigrants’ political preparedness and the development of intercultural social skills. The project will be disseminated to the grassroots level, to the immigrants’ own associations and events, where third-country nationals eligible to vote will be informed in different languages about the voting activities, rules and behaviour in Finnish municipal elections.  Material on the topic will be created in different languages like Somali, English, Arabic, Kurdish, Persian, Chinese and possibly also Russian.

The project will be supervised by a Steering Committee comprising representatives from the immigrant communities, Finnish civil society and public administration, and function in collaboration with Key Persons from the immigrant community to disseminate information.