Europe has recently witnessed political controversies over national models of integration. It has been repeated in public and political debates that these models (ex: Republicanism in France & Multiculturalism in Great-Britain) are in crisis: they supposedly failed to integrate migrants in ‘old’ immigration countries. 

The aim of SUCCESS is to bring together young citizens from a number of countries and diverse cultural, social and religious backgrounds together to transcend current populist, xenophobic and nationalist discourses and debates surrounding social cohesion, migrant integration and multiculturalism. 

SUCCESS shows how wrong the discourse on the crisis of national models is and how integration continues, moves forward, is changing in our European societies.

SUCCESS’ main objective and impact is the empowerment of the 60 participants; in other words, building the capacity of citizens to put forward a diagnosis, to identify issues and to formulate recommendations on practices of citizenship in the local, national and European contexts. The dynamic network at the European level will create an added value at the local level, and putting specific experiences in perspective with local realities in other countries.

The project goes to the heart of local communities, taking a bottom-up approach to the civic participation of ordinary citizens, and more particularly young citizens from migrant and ethnic minority backgrounds.

SUCCESS brings together local groups in Montreuil (France), Palermo (Italy), Birmingham (Great-Britain) and Oeiras (Portugal) to discuss issues of citizenship and multiculturalism in our current societies.

Once a year, SUCCESS brings together all participants in one of SUCCESS’ cities to share their reflections during various workshops and to put together their work in order to strengthen the network. These meetings are connected to an international conference on a specific theme chosen according to local realities.

SUCCESS aims to give a voice to ordinary citizens. The working groups will constitute a space where ordinary citizens from diverse backgrounds can converse with representatives of local political and social institutions, with a view to arriving at their own definitions of citizenship, and to determine how citizenship values can be put into effective practice in everyday life and what it means to be a citizen in a successful society.

Results of the work carried out by these groups will be reported to the European Commission and will be spread through local press releases, public meetings in the local areas concerned and on the SUCCESS Website.

A pilot committee evaluates the method, results and impacts at the end of each year and proposes improvement. The pilot committee is composed as follows: director of the Center for Migrations and Citizenship, co-ordinators of the local groups and communication advisor. The pilot committee bases its evaluation on the objectives of the year and different tools, such as the Website frequentation, events assiduity and participation.

SUCCESS is a project funded by the European Commission’s General Directorate on Education and Culture, as well as the French Institute of International Relations (Ifri) and the Region Ile de France. The Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and the University of Palermo are partners in the project.