General Assembly 2025: welcoming new members and strengthening the RESCALED movement

On the 23rd of May 2025, RESCALED held its annual General Assembly in Salzburg, Austria. This year’s event marked a meaningful gathering to reflect, (re)connect, and look ahead.

In addition to reflecting on the key highlights and achievements of the past year, including our growing impact and the expanding reach of the RESCALED movement across Europe. We took time to (re)connect, with new members bringing fresh perspectives, and long-standing members sharing valuable insights and impact. But most importantly, we looked ahead together, reaffirming our shared vision for the future and the path we are taking as a movement.

This year, we were proud to welcome three new members who each enrich our network with their own unique strengths and commitments:

Diagrama Foundation (United Kingdom)

Diagrama Foundation supports vulnerable children and young people in custodial and care settings. Their approach is based on trauma-informed care, restorative justice principles, and child development theory. Operating small-scale, therapeutic residential settings, that move away from punitive, institutional approaches and instead prioritise relational security, personal growth, and reintegration into the community. Diagrama has charity status in England and Wales and is part of Fundación Diagrama, one of Spain’s largest NGOs.

Jalta – Cultural and Social Centre (Slovakia)

Based in Slovakia, Jalta works at the intersection of community engagement, policy advocacy, and creative methodologies. Through projects like #stopdiscrimination they address systemic issues affecting vulnerable groups and promote inclusive reform through public advocacy, workshops, and educational campaigns, while projects like inVulnerables/DAR and Theatregeneration offer creative and educational methodologies that support the reintegration of justice-involved youth and vulnerable individuals through European collaborations.

Dr. Olta Qejvani (Albania)

Dr. Olta Qejvani is a lecturer in European Law and has over a decade of experience across academia, civil society, and public administration. She has represented Albania at the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities at the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, where her project ‘Different local communities, same youth perspective’ was recognized as one of the best initiatives for youth participation at the local level.

Board elections

We also proudly re-elected Gonçalo Noronha Andrade and Birte Metz to the RESCALED Board. Their ongoing leadership will continue to strengthen and guide our movement.

We look ahead with energy and purpose, moving forward as a European movement with members across 20 countries, committed to driving justice reform. 

One small step for detention houses, one giant leap for RESCALED

Discover how RESCALED’s latest achievement marks a major turning point in building a European movement for small-scale, community-integrated detention houses

The European Movement for Detention Houses now has members in seventeen European countries

For a movement, growth is important. But equally important is how you grow as a movement. RESCALED is a movement of people who share values on a personal level. We discuss, we laugh, we support each other with the RESCALED mission and vision in mind. We are honoured to welcome ten new members to the movement and look forward to all the synergies in the near future! On June 11th, the RESCALED General Assembly welcomed ten new members:

    • Release (Ireland)
    • Village of Hope (Estonia)
    • Richtungswechsel (Austria)
    • Associazione Antigone (Italy)
    • Association Possible (France)
    • Stichting Sileo (the Netherlands)
    • Silta-Valmennusyhdistys ry (Finland)
    • Coalition of NGOs for Child Protection KOMF (Kosovo)
    • CPIP – Center for Promoting Lifelong Learning (Romania)
    • Angelus Custos Association For Civil Society Development (Croatia)
RESCALED General Assembly June 2024 in Prague, the Czech Republic

Our movement also re-elected board members Berit Johnsen, Rogier Elshout, Hans Claus, Roger Nilsen and Gonçalo Noronha Andrade, and welcomed Birte Metz to the RESCALED Board. Tim Verbist has joined as an advisor to the Board!