Ahmed Haji Omer quickly transforms the office opposite the stamping post in the former barracks into a ‘participation desk’. He puts a plate of Oreo cookies on a side table and places some extra chairs. Omer, a fresh thirties with short black-gray hair, is one of the residents of Schalkhaar, the asylum seekers’ center just outside the village of the same name near Deventer. He helps fellow residents who are looking for an activity.
A vegetable garden is located between the buildings that house 650 asylum seekers. That’s where the residents work: they make handwritten signs with plant names, hoe, sow and harvest. They also run the dry cleaner’s and shop, and take the little kids to the road in the morning. The bus stops there to take them to the school in the built-up area.
Like every Wednesday, today there is a walk-in morning in Schalkhaar for residents who want to have something to do – language support, for example, sports or volunteer work. That day was not chosen by chance: on Wednesday all residents of the asylum seekers’ center must report and get a stamp. Then they can immediately stop by the ‘participation desk’, thought Michiel ten Bulte (38), the organizer and project leader for the volunteer center Deventer Doet. He could really use Ahmed’s help, because he speaks the main Kurdish dialect Kurmanci, Arabic and English fluently.
Music Festival
The first one to pass by today introduces himself as Naif. Like Ahmed, he comes from Kurdish Iraq, and he wants to work. Loudly speaking, the men start filling in the application form. Ahmed switches to English to discuss with Ten Bulte whether Naif can go to the music festival for which construction will soon start. It concerns unpaid work; volunteers receive coffee and sandwiches during the work they carry out together with the Dutch, and after carrying them they have free access. This workplace therefore meets the conditions set by Deventer Doet. Ten Bulte: “Participating is about making contact, learning the language and getting acquainted with our habits. We cannot use organizations that want to pick up free workers at the asylum seekers’ center who have to peel or carry bulbs all day without contact in a shed.”
Then Bienvenue walks in, a slim twenty-something in a light blue polo shirt with white pants underneath. He greets Ahmed and Ten Bulte with a firm pat on the back and introduces himself to newcomer Naif. He also signs up for the construction of the music festival. In fluent Dutch, he asks Ten Bulte whether this is as much of a job as the last theater festival. Then they switch to English, so that Ahmed can join in the conversation.
B1 integration route
At the end of the walk-in morning, another newcomer arrives: Sameer from Yemen. He wants to use his time usefully, he says, and any contact is welcome. He would like to take a weekly wheelchair walk with the elderly from the care home further on, he says, but unfortunately that is not possible. He injured his knee.
Sameer has been in the Netherlands since November last year and received a residence permit for five years on January 13, 2022. He is one of the 136 status holders that the municipality of Deventer has been assigned this year, in addition to 350 Ukrainians. Together with an integration consultant from the municipality, Sameer has drawn up his Integration and Participation Plan (PIP) in recent weeks. This is an important innovation in the Civic Integration Act, intended to facilitate integration into Dutch society. Sameers PIP states that he is starting the ‘B1 integration route’: gaining work experience through language lessons and training on the work floor. The aim is that in three years he will have paid work in IT, his field.
Sameer hopes to be able to work earlier for a normal salary. Until then, he will receive social assistance benefits from the municipality. It may soon go up; family reunification is underway so that he can move into a rented house in Deventer with his wife and two children.
Sameer’s quick American-English accent and businesslike manner make it sound like he’s laying out a business plan. How did he get a permit so quickly? He does not know.
The contrast with Bienvenue is great. He has been in the Netherlands for over two and a half years, but his chance of a permit is “nil” according to Ten Bulte. And that while Bienvenue says it is really not safe in its motherland Congo. “Just like in Yemen, a bloody civil war has been raging in Congo for years,” says Ten Bulte.
Also read: Asylum seekers are not welcome in Westland in South Holland
Depression
“I have seen a lot of people here sliding into depression,” says Michiel ten Bulte, when he clears up the flyers with information about working in Arabic, Kurdish, Dutch and English. “I also see it happening at Bienvenue. He has an admirably positive attitude to life. But imagine: as a volunteer he started painting rooms in the new emergency shelter for Ukrainian refugees. Within a month a much nicer place was ready for them than this barracks where he has been living for two years. Ukrainian refugees can immediately go to school and work here, while he remains stuck in a kind of no man’s land.”
It frustrates Ten Bulte immensely. He wonders why not all refugees are allowed to start work immediately, regardless of origin. Why they are legally only allowed to work paid if their asylum application has been pending for at least six months. And why, if it is finally allowed, they can only work paid 24 weeks a year.
It is, Ten Bulte sighs, that the people for whom he works so inspire him. That’s why he continues. “Someone should really stand up in politics for all refugees,” he says. “So that participating is not an empty slogan.”
Ten Bulte considers himself lucky with the municipality of Deventer. He is co-financer of Deventer Doet, is now receiving 940 non-Western and Ukrainian refugees at various locations and is pursuing an active participation policy.
Budget
The participation desk in Schalkhaar asylum seekers’ center started in 2017, when Ten Bulte joined as a volunteer. The initiative is part of a national project, which arose from successful trials that took place in 2015 in Nijmegen and Utrecht. 38 asylum seekers centers now have participation counters. The main financier is the Ministry of Social Affairs, which is responsible for the implementation of the Civic Integration Act. There is always a fuss about the budget. As a coordinator, Ten Bulte is now paid eight hours a week, and Deventer Doet guarantees continuity.
Rob de Geest, the Deventer alderman (PvdA) who has work, income, asylum and integration in his portfolio, considers it logical that municipalities should direct the integration of beneficiaries. “We already had newcomers at the housing and social assistance desk. Now we can do a lot more for them.”
That, he says, is where the problem lies. “The budget made available by the government is insufficient. It is only for newcomers who received a residence permit after January 1, 2022.”
As a result, a group of status holders falls just outside the amended law. They belong to what has come to be called the ‘meanwhile group’. They received a residence permit shortly before 2022, were already linked to the municipality and started to integrate under the old law.
The Spirit does not want to make a hard distinction between people who fall under the old or new regime. “We want to help both groups. As a municipality, it is in our interest that every new resident is happy and resilient. In order to be able to realize this ambition and to assist them in a rapid integration in accordance with the new legislation, we supplement the budget with our own resources, from a reserve pot.”
Language delay
Since the beginning of this year, the three integration consultants of the municipality have drawn up 22 integration plans – so 114 more to go. Ultimately, all newcomers, like Sameer, have to end up in a ‘portal to work’ via a ‘learning route’.
In the meantime, Michiel ten Bulte has been unable to place a Turkish teacher at a school as a volunteer for months. Despite the tight labor market. He suspects that employers find the language deficiency objectionable. It doesn’t stop him from visiting a primary school in the area after the walk-in morning. “This man is well trained and experienced. If they just let him participate, they will automatically see his capacity.”