Training 15th of March with Migrants Supporting Migrants
“Working to advance the welfare and rights of migrants in the UK”.
During the 3 hour training I gave with my manager from the charity Migrants Supporting Migrants, we focused on migration awareness. More precisely, the training looked at “Working to advance the welfare and rights of migrants in the UK”.
Objectives:
The participants should be able to
• Identify which groups make up the national and local population of migrant workers
• List some of the common experiences of migrant workers in the UK
• Identify issues around which migrant workers may need advice, and barriers they face
• Suggest ways to challenge some of the myths surrounding migrant workers
Summary
• There are now about 214 million people (out of 6 billion) living outside their place of birth - more than at any point in history (IOM 2010)
• Glossary
- Migration – international movement of people
- Net migration – the number of people leaving and entering a country (to settle)
- Emigration (emigrants) – the process of leaving the country of origin
- Imigration (imigrants) – the process of settling in a host country
- Asylum seekers - Someone who has lodged an application for protection
- Refugees – Someone who is granted asylum. Refugees and asylum seekers are people who have been forced to flee their home country due to persecution or political violence. Refugees have had their claim recognised under the UN charter, asylum seekers are still going through the process, most are not allowed to work.
• Reasons for migration
- Labour migration to escape extreme poverty and to send remittances back to the country of origin
- Education
- Discovery of another culture
- Forced migration
• Overview of the UK
- The UK operates a managed migration policy based on the points based system
- In the past months, the focus has been on reducing the number of immigrants. The Office for National Statistics has released new numbers which show that in 2010, approximately 572,000 people entered the UK on a long-term basis and 346,000 emigrated. That means that net migration (the numbers of people entering the UK and those leaving the UK) has risen by 36%.
• Learning from MSM work. Migrants need:
- Information in their first language about Rights and Responsibilities in the UK, and how to access services
- Good quality, tailored services (one to one support)
- Work long hours, so they find it hard to access services during the day => Workshops and meetings held in the evenings and weekends
- Very little support available for migrant workers who lose their jobs, many are homeless and destitute
- Migrant Workers currently get support through faith groups, ESOL classes and informal ‘community leaders’ with better English
- Engaging these informal ‘leaders’ is a good way to access different communities
- Flexible/new ways of working are needed to involve both men and women, younger and older people
- Partnership work is essential
Recommendations:
• English classes
• Spatial desegregration
• Mentoring – 1 to 1 support
• Mapping
• Get the migrants involved in community projects.
• Classes on cultural clash
(This briefing expresses the views of the author. Claudia Paraschivescu - Researcher and Immigration Adviser Claudia Paraschivescu - Researcher and Immigration Adviser)
European Citizenship and Mobility, Interrelations and implications
http://www.european-intercultural-forum.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=19&Itemid=33
Berlin 12-16 January 2011
Impressions
We attended a conference on European Citizenship and Mobility which took place in Berlin during 12-16 January 2011. Besides taking part at various workshops and debates, we also visited an NGO and we had the chance to meet people from various European countries, such as Germany, Czech Republic and Poland who work either for NGOs focusing on mobility from an European point of view or for the national ministries. We consider ourselves to be lucky to have attended it and we think that it has been an extremely enriching experience from a cultural and political point of view.
Why did Veristat attend this conference?
The reason for us to attend this conference was twofold. As we deeply believe that migration is here to stay, we also promote the idea that a well-informed person is someone who constantly interacts with people of different origins and backgrounds. Secondly, we think that the world of migration is made up of never ending flows of people and policies. We attended this conference to learn more about current debates around this concept and how it may ‘affect’ or not the world we live in.
Description
The project was funded by the European Union’s “Europe for Citizens” and it was managed by the European Intercultural Forum from Germany. The partner countries were the UK, Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic. Its main aim was to foster discussions and debates on mobility and migration within the EU and promote the idea of European citizenship and its role in an era of migration. During the five-day conference, we looked at the reasons, consequences and challenges of migration in the EU, EU mobility programmes and EU citizenship.
Objectives
In the context of the debate and dialogue on European citizenship and mobility, this conference aimed at:
- Promoting dialogue about the reasons, consequences, challenges and policy responses of migration within the EU
- Fostering debate and reflection on the impact of mobility in the EU
- Presentation of successfully implemented initiatives fostering European citizenship and the debates during the conference in a conference paper in February 2011.
Areas covered
Together with the group we were part of, we looked at various aspects of the migratory process. Using the brainstorming method, we identified the challenges and the consequences of migration. We also looked into depth at national policy responses and the social pillar of the European Union regarding migration.
a. Challenges and consequences of migration
Migration has a big impact on our society. We identified four main levels at which migration is seen as ‘challenging’ the ‘behaviour’ of various actors.
Sending country
-‘brain drain’
-underdevelopment of the country because no foreign direct investment since no emphasis on R&D
-remittances sent to the country of origin – help to improve the wellbeing of receivers (or help to create geographical segregation)
-families break up, children are taken care of by grandparents -
Receiving country
-‘brain gain’
-the notion of social citizenship is challenged as rights do not apply to nationals only
-the notion of loyalty and belonging
Global level
-The increase of the number of flight companies
-the increase of flight routes
-the creation of new technologies (Eg: Skype)
Personal level
-identitary frustration
-creation of a third place which is in-between the sending and the receiving countries.
b. National policy responses
Across Europe, EU policy on migration tends to be exclusive and open-door, whereas nation-states tend to promote an inclusive policy. In that respect, during the conference, we outlined three trends the changes in national policies. These are:
- Raise in right-wing parties across Europe (Eg.: the Netherlands, Sweden, France)
- Administrative removals of citizens holding the nationality of a EU member-state (Eg.: the removal of Romanian and Hungarian Roma from France)
- The tightening of migration laws and the cap of workers (the UK)
c. Social pillar of the EU and the nation-states
We identified three buzzwords which helped us to better understand the social dimension of the EU related to migration. These are:
- Community
- Integration
- Linguistic, social and intercultural exchange
In that respect, the EU should promote the absorption of migrants by nation-states through a process of intercultural exchange between foreigners and locals. This could be achieved through
• workshops (art workshops) which would bring together representatives of the majority and minorities
• a tutor system which would enable the immigrants to gain an insight into the receiving country.
A more rigorous follow-up of EU funds and transparency are therefore necessary in order to ensure that it is properly used.
Conclusion
This conference, which aimed to foster a debate amongst migration practitioners, met its preliminary objectives. It brought together various practitioners from 5 different countries who engaged in a debate on European citizenship and migration in the EU. The output of the conference is a publication which will be released in February 2011.
(This briefing expresses the views of the author. Claudia Paraschivescu - Researcher and Immigration Adviser)
