How can I help?
Back to: Working with Refugees and Asylum Seekers
geralt, pixabay
People coming to Europe due to the horrible situation in their home countries need a lot of support. It is not enough to arrive here safe and sound. The process of arriving, gaining ground and integrating into the foreign society can be accompanied by volunteers in manifold ways:
For the newcomers European countries are foreign and sometimes strange. They know neither the culture nor the unwritten rules of social life. Encounters with volunteers can help them to integrate step by step.
For example, you can invite some of them to a walkabout to the local hot spots, places of interest and infrastructure. You can organise festivities for groups. You can cook together with them, join them for shopping, make music or do sport with them.
Communication procedures with authorities can be very hard for the newcomers, and not only for language reasons. Therefore it can be great help to accompany them to authorities, doctors or schools. It would be useful to collaborate with migrants who live here for a longer time and can act as interpreters.
Newcomers may be used to a different lifestyle and may have differing attitudes towards education, gender roles and other elements of everyday culture. This can cause difficulties and conflicts. Volunteers can play the role of „culture interpreters“ explaining and showing the norms and rules of European social life.
Many asylum seekers suffer from inactivity because usually they are not allowed to work in the first phase of their stay in Europe. Boredom and insecure perspectives discourage them and can cause stress and aggressive mood. Volunteers can help to relax the situation by organising leisure activities, e.g. sport, local trips or cultural pursuits.
In many supporting circles sponsorships are an approved approach. One local person serves as a permanent contact for one migrant, one family or one small group. This can help to build up mutual trust and to minimise misunderstandings and conflicts.
Young asylum seekers have special problems. Civil war, flight and escape put specific strains on them. Some of them could not attend school for a long time, some are illiterate, many have severe language problems. Volunteers can support them by helping them with their homework and serve as contact persons for teachers and parents.
Children suffer from the shortage of space in the accommodations as well. Volunteers can play with them or organise trips.
Many refugees were forced to leave back their belongings in their home countries or during their escape. Some of them arrive in Europe just with one bag. While they live in asylum seekers accommodations they have access to elementary household effects but when moving to private accommodations they lack of furniture and the most essential household items. Volunteers can help to clarify what is needed and support the purchase.
Many locals donate clothes, household effects, toys or bicycles to the communities and support circles. Volunteers can help to fix them and to distribute them to those in need. Furthermore they can explain the use of electronic devices and other necessary things of everyday life, e.g. the way in which waste is disposed and separated.
Asylum seekers who wish to practice their religion in their new environment should be supported in this matter. Volunteers can organise rooms for services and praying and establish contacts with congregations and churches. Respect, mutual tolerance and the will to learn from each other is needed to find a good way of interaction even in the sometimes problematic issue of different faiths.