On 7 September 2023, the first online meeting of the project teams of the Republic of Slovenia and the Republic of Croatia was held related to the implementation of the EU project “First IN then OUT”.
↵The project “First IN then OUT” will be implemented in the Slovenian and Croatian prison systems for 18 months, and the final conference for the presentation of all the results of both project teams is planned to take place in February 2025 in Ljubljana (Slovenia).
The online meeting of partners in the project - Ljubljana Public Education Centre - Cene Štupar (CILJ) and their associated partner, the Prison Administration of the Republic of Slovenia (URSIKS) on the Slovenian side, and the Zagreb Training Centre on the Croatian side - was organised to familiarise all the relevant actors in the preparation and implementation of the EU project in the Slovenian and Croatian prison systems with the positive results of the approved EU project application as well as a short description of the project and the stages of the project that follow.
Apart from team leaders and members of both project teams and project operators (multipliers), the online meeting was attended, from the Slovenian side, by the newly appointed Deputy Director General of URSIKS Emanuel Banutai, who will be responsible for international cooperation and will, coordinate numerous activities of this project, together with his close associates, Head of Treatment Department Lucija Božikov, Head of Department of Education Petra Prijatelj. The Director General of the Directorate for Prison System and Probation on the Croatian side was replaced in official absence by Mr Robert Orbanić, Head of Prison System Administrative Affairs Sector, who conveyed sincere congratulations to the project teams and their leaders, on behalf of the Director General, for the excellent work done in the application for the EU project, and expressed great pleasure about cooperation with a partner from neighbouring and friendly Slovenia with extensive experience in applying and implementing projects. The heads of both project partners, directors Bojan Hajdinjak for Cene Štupar Ljubljana and Smiljka Baranček for the Training Centre, expressed mutual support and desire for further cooperation on several grounds as well as satisfaction with the results of preparation of project documentation i.e. the approval of the project.
The presentation of the EU project prepared for this occasion by Ms. Dragica Glažar, Cena Štupar’s team leader, familiarised all the participants of the meeting with the long-term benefits for both prison systems and the purpose and objectives of the implementation of this EU project worth 60,000 EUR i.e. its implementation in the prison systems of the Republic of Slovenia and the Republic of Croatia.
Both sides expressed their satisfaction with the formally established international co-operation in the approved EU project and the willingness to strengthen mutual cooperation on different grounds, one of which is certainly new joint applications for other EU projects.
The project is co-financed by the European Union - Erasmus+ projects. The views and opinions expressed are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Union or the Centre of the Republic of Slovenia for Mobility and European Educational and Training Programmes (CMEPIUS). Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.
