| 3 May 2007
2006 was a very fruitful year for the Latvian Citizenship and Migration office. All Schengen Facility contracts were prepared and signed. The Office continued implementation of the EQUAL project "Step by step" - to integrate asylum seekers, and prepared several projects for the Transition Facility. From the Schengen Facility programme projects, the most noticeable is the project "Language training for the employees of the Citizenship and Migration Office", where English and French language courses were conducted, including in the UK. During the last year 27 language study visits have been organized, and 5026 English language classes as well as 84 French language classes were organized. During 2007 another project will be completed: "Development of the National Visa Information System in Latvia", where biometrical data are processed and data information exchanged with EU Central Visa System and Schengen Information System as well as United Migration Information System. Another project "Building and Equipment of the server room for the Citizenship and Migration Office", will be completed, which will increase security of the information systems and will guarantee un-interrupted service. Currently a project is being negotiated with Transition Facility on "Increase of security storing and processing of Immigration Cases" in cooperation with the Greece International Rights Center. A similar project is planned on "Strengthening of Administrative Capacity of Visa, Migration and SIS implementation field", where project partners will be the Netherlands Immigration and Naturalization service. The Citizenship and Migration office will also supervise 3 projects from the European Refugee Fund - training the personnel, who work with asylum seekers. Finally there are another two projects planned from the 2005 ERF Community Action: "Society and Refugees: Improving of the Social Integration", implemented by IOM office in Rome, and "Information system on countries of origin III - Training and exchange of experience", where the leading partner is the Austrian Red Cross. There are also 4 proposals to ARGO submitted by the Office.
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