At One Today, Renée Frissen talks more about integration. Status holders still have to wait a long time before their integration begins. According to CBS, over 70% of municipalities have waiting lists for the integration course. What does this mean for newcomers and what does this mean for our society?
Newcomers must wait a long time
Newcomers want to get started, but have to wait a long time and can only start language and society classes much later. We simply see that people who have to wait so long lose their ambition, their hope to build things in the Netherlands.
At the same time, the law as intended, and it has only been in place for 2 years, is very difficult to find its form in practice. Because there are all kinds of circumstances, think of the teacher shortage, waiting lists in child care, which make it difficult to organize things.
That long wait is a terrible shame; there are labor shortages, the number of volunteers is declining. On the contrary, there is a great need for people who can participate immediately! "Integration is a learning system. What I hope is that the national government will now look at municipalities like Deventer or Meijerijstad, where they say 'the way it is conceived on paper doesn't quite fit, give us the space to look in practice with the people who are integrating themselves, to see how we can adjust this'. Start early, quick language lessons, quick to work, quick to participate."
"Give us the space to work in practice with the people integrating themselves to see how we can adapt this. Start early, quick language classes, quick to work, quick to participate."
Renée Frissen, Director of OpenEmbassy
Project Everyone on Board
How can it be done? In Deventer, they are rolling up their sleeves themselves with the Everyone on Board project. Rob de Geest, alderman for asylum in Deventer, says: "The moment people are linked to Deventer, we want to keep them here. We want to prevent people from having to be moved again for all kinds of logistical reasons, from how we have organized it here in NL."
"If we harness people's potential, we benefit as a whole country. After all, we know that 85% of people who apply for asylum are allowed to stay because they come from countries where it is dangerous."
Laura Faber, Director Everyone on Board
OneToday
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