The project “Enhancing police officers to fight discrimination and effectively respond to crimes against LGBTIQ+ people – EXIS” aims to establish a multidisciplinary network to benefit members of the LGBTIQ+ community, protect victims of hate/racist crimes, and safeguard their rights. In this direction, EXIS will address issues related to the priority of the “Call on public authorities to improve their actions against discrimination, racism, antisemitism, anti-Muslim hatred and xenophobia, LGBTQI-phobia and all other forms of intolerance.”
Purpose of the Action
The EXIS project focuses, through capacity-building activities, learning techniques, and the development of pilot methods and tools, on the following:
- increasing knowledge
- adopting a gender-based approach towards members of rainbow communities, particularly victims of hate/racist crimes
- changing police officers’ perceptions towards Civil Society Organizations (CSOs)
- strengthening the culture of multidisciplinary cooperation between police, CSOs, and other relevant authorities for the protection of LGBTIQ+ community
- addressing the limited number of reported related crimes
- conducting effective investigative procedures.
Cooperation with Participating Entities
The project is coordinated by the “European and Development Programs Management Agency (EDPMA)” of the Ministry of Citizen Protection and includes five (5) other partners (six partners in total) from three (3) different EU Member States (Greece – Cyprus – Germany), as follows:
- University of West Attica – UNIWA (Greece)
- Center for Security Studies – KEMEA (Greece)
- Thessaloniki PRIDE (Greece)
- IANUS (Cyprus)
- University of Applied Sciences for Public Services in Bavaria (Germany)
The total budget of EXIS Project is 599.463,28 €, with 90% funded by European Commission and specifically by CERV-2023-EQUAL funding programme. The implementation period is 24 months, with a completion date of 31-01-2027.
