The Daphne Programme is a programme of community action supported by the Directorate-General for Justice and Home Affairs of the European Commission. Its purpose is to promote preventive measures aimed at combating violence against children, adolescents and women. These measures are implemented via the different projects which constitute the programme.

The CONRED project: a virtual community aimed at preventing violence against immigrant children and adolescents who have no social support network was approved in 2000 when proposals were invited for the Daphne Programme. The Pere Tarrés Foundation-Ramon Llull University is the organisation responsible for links with the European Commission and the general coordination of the project.

The project can be divided into two stages:

The first stage corresponds to work done in the year 2001. The main objective pursued was the carrying out of a Comparative Study of the different situations produced by the phenomenon of unaccompanied immigrant children and adolescents in the countries participating in the project. As a result of this first year's work a Comparative Study and a Code of Good Practice for the participating countries were produced. University departments and organisations working in the social field in Spain, Belgium, Denmark, France and Switzerland worked together as members during this year.

In 2002 the project was suspended because of administrative difficulties.

In 2003 the Daphne programme of the European Union renewed its support for the project, allowing a further two-year period of work to be undertaken.

The second stage corresponds to 2003 and 2004 (ending in January 2005) and incorporates new objectives, giving the project wider scope. It includes new elements intended to bring greater direct benefits to the group it is targeted at: immigrant minors living in European countries and travelling without any support network, and in particular without relatives.

The information and data from all the European countries collected in the first Comparative Study will be extended and updated to facilitate an analysis of current conditions. At the same time the Code of Good Practice will be updated and specified in greater detail. A new feature of this second stage will be the contributions to both documents from additional European countries (Portugal and Italy) and information from two North African countries (Morocco and Algeria), both of which are the countries of origin of large numbers of children and adolescents travelling to many European cities. The presence of these two countries will not preclude the analysis of minors from other areas, such as European countries outside the EU, Asia, sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America.

A key result of the project will be the planning of a European Seminar to train educators. This is to take place in Barcelona in May 2004 and is intended for professionals working with minors. Another objective is the setting up of a European Observatory to study the phenomenon of unaccompanied immigrant minors.

This website is intended to be a tool to facilitate the exchange of information and a means of making the results obtained available to a wider public.

For further information please contact: conred@peretarres.org

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