Catalin Grosu is the initiator and ex-Director of the Department for Foreigners’ Integration and Diversity within the City Hall of Bucharest. In this capacity, he was responsible with all local inclusion activities, focal point for all local and national actors on migrants’ social integration and responsible for implementing relevant European projects. He was the coordinator of the implementation of "DELI - Diversity in the Economy and Local Integration" European project, having the Council of Europe as leading partner. He holds a M.A. in Law and International Relations, and is a certified trainer by the Ministry of Labor, Family, Social Protection and Elders, and Ministry of National Education and Scientific Research. He is also the president of the Romanian Center for Integration, an activist association on Diversity advantage and Social inclusion of migrants.
Romanian Center for Integration’ Association (CERI) is an NGO established in 2015 aiming to support, in the Romanian society, people with a migrant background, regardless of their generation (hereunder called immigrants), to support the integration of Romanian nationals living abroad and families thereof, as well as the reintegration of people willing to repatriate.
CERI is the direct outcome of the DELI project, co-funded by the Council of Europe and the European Integration Fund, which fostered more efficiently the local policies, in support of migrant-owned SMEs and migrant entrepreneurship, as a part of the wider diversity and inclusion policies in ten European cities. During the implementation of DELI project, it became obvious that some of the key Integration activities cannot be tackled by the public authorities, due to legal constraints, and a civil-society based entity, an NGO, should take over. This association was established in a trustworthy environment, where all the existing niche associations of the foreign communities in Romania have found a pillar for fundamental societal changes toward non-discrimination, integration of migrants and Diversity values implementation.
CERI is closely working with the private sector in supporting the foreign communities in Romania to access funds in order to implement their integration and social inclusion projects.
