March 18, 2026 | Brussels, Belgium
On March 18, 2026, MILAGRO was represented at the Citizens’ Engagement and
Participation Cluster Meeting, part of the Citizens, Equality, Rights & Values (CERV)
Programme, held in Brussels at Comet Meetings – Louise. The event brought together project
beneficiaries from across Europe, alongside staff from DG JUST and the European Education
and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA), for a full day of peer learning, knowledge exchange,
and collaborative reflection on how citizen engagement projects are making a difference across
the continent.
The day unfolded around three core themes that resonated deeply with MILAGRO’s own work:
citizen engagement in the new information age, with a focus on participatory methods and co-
creation; reaching and empowering vulnerable and hard-to-reach groups; and — perhaps most
central to MILAGRO’s mission — how projects translate EU priorities into local impact. What
made the experience particularly valuable was the recognition that projects across Europe share
the same fundamental questions: How do we make European values tangible and inclusive at the
community level? How do we turn civic education into real empowerment?
MILAGRO’s participation was made possible by the presence of two of its key activity
partners: Nuova Associazione Culturale Ulisse (NACU) and SIS Intercultural Study Abroad,
who engaged actively in the discussions alongside fellow beneficiaries from across the EU. It
was a remarkable moment: proof that a project rooted in local cultural and educational work can
find its natural place in a wider European conversation about democracy, participation, and
citizenship.
The Cluster Meeting was more than a networking event. It was an opportunity to take stock of
what has been built and to envision what comes next. For MILAGRO, the conversations sparked
new thinking about how to expand initiatives within upcoming CERV calls, deepen existing
partnerships, and bring even more communities into the European civic space. NACU continues
to grow as a European partner, and SIS is already exploring how to develop new activities
inspired by the ideas and connections made in Brussels. For the project as a whole, this feels like
a natural progression: consolidating what has been achieved and opening new doors for
collaboration.
“Europe sometimes seems abstract. Days like this remind us that it can actually be very human.”
