Events & Updates

OFR

In 2018, the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) and the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH joined forces to present their complementary return and reintegration services, highlight synergies and promote professional exchange in the field of voluntary return with the Voluntary Return Option (OFR). The project is based on an interdepartmental return initiative of the Federal Ministry of the Interior and Homeland (BMI) and the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).

As part of their cooperation, IOM, BAMF and GIZ developed three core messages that emphasize the commonalities of the partners in the field of voluntary return and reintegration:
• We support people who cannot or do not want to stay in Germany in returning in a dignified manner.
• We inform people about their individual options so that they can make an informed decision.
• We provide comprehensive guidance for people from their counselling in Germany to their sustainable reintegration in their region of origin.

OFR addresses a broad professional audience consisting of return counselors, volunteers and representatives of the federal states and municipalities. The jointly organized OFR events offer return counsellors a platform to learn about the partners' programmes in the field of return and reintegration and to share their work and experiences. Since July 2023, the project has been implemented as a cooperation between BAMF and IOM. In May 2023, a two-day, nationwide event entitled "Current developments and experiences in return and reintegration" was held for the first time at the BAMF headquarters in Nuremberg. In the following fall, the OFR offer was rounded off with a virtual series of events on return and reintegration in Iraq, Turkey, Serbia and Georgia and the reintegration offers there.

Over the past five years, OFR has been able to firmly establish itself in the return and reintegration landscape and at the same time remains changeable - for example, a quantitative and qualitative needs assessment of return counselors is currently taking place in order to continuously develop the services and projects of the BAMF and IOM.

Further information on the events and registration will follow by e-mail.

Your contact at the International Organization for Migration:

Alina Klehr
Phone: +49 30 27877 8819
Email: aklehr@iom.int

Here you can watch the videos of the virtual events 2023:

Option Freiwillige Rückkehr - virtual event on 06.12.2023 Fokus Georgia:



Option Freiwillige Rückkehr - virtual event on 28.11.2023 Focus Serbia:



Option Freiwillige Rückkehr - virtual event on 02.11.2023 Focus Turkey:



Option Freiwillige Rückkehr - virtual event on 16.10.2023 - Focus Iraq:



Here you can watch a video of the national event in November 2022 in Frankfurt am Main:



Here you can watch the video from the national event in Berlin in May 2022: