UNITE brings together coaches and mentors who work closely with people navigating a genuinely difficult life transition. Supporting people who have recently fled a war, and who are navigating an unfamiliar country while carrying real uncertainty about their future, means that difficult and emotionally heavy topics come up regularly in coaching sessions. That is precisely why the exchange between coaches and mentors across the four partner countries — Sweden, Poland, Germany, and Austria — has become such a valuable part of the project.
So far, two online meetings have brought together coaches and mentors from all partner organisations. These sessions gave everyone involved the chance to compare notes: what challenges are coaches in other countries facing? How do mentors in Poland handle situations that feel similar to ones we’ve encountered in Austria? What has worked well, and what hasn’t? For a role that can otherwise feel quite solitary — sitting one-on-one with someone navigating a genuinely difficult life transition — this kind of peer exchange offers real relief, as well as practical ideas that can be brought straight back into everyday work with participants.
In June 2026, this exchange took a further step: coaches and mentors from all four countries met in person in Uppsala, Sweden, for a face-to-face meeting hosted by our Swedish project partner. Meeting colleagues in person, after months of collaborating primarily online, added a different quality to the conversations — more room for nuance, for informal exchange during breaks, and for building the kind of trust that makes future collaboration easier.
Beyond the practical exchange of experience, one outcome of the Uppsala meeting stood out clearly: everyone in the room agreed that UNITE matters. Across four countries and very different national contexts, coaches and mentors independently arrived at the same conclusion — that this project creates a genuine social impact for the people it supports, and that the work, while demanding, is deeply worthwhile.
These meetings are a reminder that a project like UNITE is not just about the tools and methodologies it uses, but about the people delivering it — and about making sure they, too, are supported, connected, and able to learn from one another across borders. As the pilot phase draws to a close, we will share a summary of what it revealed in our next post.
Abstract
Two online meetings and a face-to-face gathering in Uppsala brought together UNITE coaches and mentors from four countries. We share what came out of these exchanges — and why everyone in the room agreed that this project creates real, tangible social impact.
_____________________________________________________
Co-funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the Social Innovation Initiative. Neither the European Union nor the Social Innovation Initiative can be held responsible for them.
