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FREE LEGAL AID PROJECT’S TEAM IN TURKEY

In purpose of exchanging experience in acceptance and care of refugees and presentation of a local legal aid mechanism for this vulnerable group, the Free legal aid project organized a study tour to Turkey. The tour, organized from the 30th of September to the 4th of October 2019 in cooperation with a local expert, included visits to municipalities and associations working with refugees, as well as refugees’ centers.

The first day of the tour, the project’s team was welcomed by the representatives of a Turkish NGO “International Blue Crescent Relief and Development Foundation -IBC”, who gave the team an overview of the Syrian refugees crisis in Turkey with emphasis on free legal aid for them, challenges and problems in building the post-war communities and basic principles of humanitarian standards. The team then visited Küçükçekmece District and IBC Youth Development Community Center for Syrians in this district, Marmara Urban Forum, Sultanbeyli and Pendik Districts and the District Refugee Community Centre for Syrians in the area of Anatolian Part of Istanbul.

The team of 15, led by the project’s Key 2 expert Zoran Popovic, included eight legal experts of the Free legal aid project, five representatives of the Office for Kosovo and Metohija and two representatives of the Commissariat for refugees and migration.

This study tour was the second study tour organized by the EU funded project „Legal aid, assistance and dissemination of information necessary for ensuring the protection and exercising of rights of IDPs, refugees and returnees“ for the experts working with the project. In May this year 14 representatives of the project and the Office for Kosovo and Metohija learned during the five-day tour throughout Croatia about the mechanism of legal aid and work with the organizations providing this assistance to vulnerable people.