COA Participating & Doing Together

Integration Work

Project

Participation and Togetherness

Client

COA

Duration

October 2024 - January 2025

Partners

Department of Extraordinary Affairs

Product

Social design

Project description

COA's ambition is to make it easier for newcomers to participate from reception in various areas of life: social connections, leisure activities, (volunteer) work, language, etc. For this purpose, the MeedoenBalie has already existed for several years. In the project Meedoen en Samendoen, Afdeling Buitengewone Zaken (ABZ), a social design agency, and OpenEmbassy were asked to create a social design to promote participation.

We started with a large-scale needs survey among newcomers in reception or who have lived in reception. We then held discussions with residents at various asylum seekers' centers about their needs for participation. We link these needs to the possibilities and opportunities inside, but especially outside, the asylum seekers' center. This is because establishing social connections is an important step towards more opportunities to participate and it is ultimately a mutual process. In combination with several observational visits, we will work with our partner ABZ to create a design that is conducive to participation. The end product is not fixed yet, but can be a process, a tangible product or a toolkit.

The design will be rolled out at all azc's with a Meedoen desk after the project is completed.

Results & insights

From the needs survey, which was completed by nearly 600 newcomers, come some interesting insights:

95% of respondents want to participate in a way
Most of the respondents want to learn the language (92.5%), followed by 75% of those who want training or education and 74% of those who would like to get to know people outside the asylum center. Just over half want to work and 60% want to volunteer.
Currently, no structural language education is offered at asylum centers beyond pre-integration.
That three-quarters of people actually want to get to know other people says something about the importance of social connections and the potential opportunities this unlocks for language learning and work, among other things.
Common reasons that make it difficult to participate are: the facilities at the asylum center (48%), too little information about what is possible (47%) and the lack of a network in the Netherlands (42%)
Factors that facilitate it include: communication skills in NL or EN (28%, although this is actually a complicating factor for 37%) and the location of the asylum center (27%, although this is a complicating factor for 39%).
Factors that more people indicate as easier than more difficult are: That people feel fit and healthy (25% versus 20% not fit) and the fact that people have many friends at the asylum center (20% versus 11%)