The refugee-crisis in Europe revealed some problems that
were already very serious in our society, yet because of the lack of media
attention they were not handled properly. Although the topic is very much
trending, there are some issues that are especially important talking about
migrant or refugee children and their parents, and where the parental
organizations could help.
OECD published a review about immigrant students at school,
where they would like to present the difficulties and challenges the refugee or
migrant children, their parents and teachers have to face.
http://www.keepeek.com/Digital-Asset-Management/oecd/education/immigrant-students-at-school_9789264249509-en#page1
http://www.keepeek.com/Digital-Asset-Management/oecd/education/immigrant-students-at-school_9789264249509-en#page1
According to the latest data published by UNICEF, 60% of the
asylum seekers coming through the Greek-Macedonian border were women or
children in January 2016.
The UN Convention of the Rights of Child declares, that
every child deserves positive discrimination, irrespective of their colour,
race, nationality, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, ethnic
or social origin, property, disability, birth or other status (including being
a refugee). The document reveals the extra needs and rights of refugee and
migrant children (Articles 22, 29, 30, 39, 40):
- they are not to be separated from their parents or be
detained
- they are to be offered protection and humanitarian
assistance, regardless their being accompanied by their parents or not,
- they are to be offered free interpretation services during
any procedure involving them,
- all possible efforts are to be taken to find the parents
of unaccompanied children and reunite them,
- offer unaccompanied children the same protection as
children with no parents in the receiving country,
- offer them appropriate education, taking into account
their abilities, eg. level of knowledge of majority language,
- the cultural identity, language and the values of the
country of origin are to be respected and supported to develop
- they are to be supported to become citizens with a spirit
of tolerance and equity of all people, that might be somewhat difficult to
balance when protecting identity in the first place
- they have the right to attend school established according
to the above
- they have the right to their minority culture, religion,
practice, even in majority schools,
- they have the right to be offered extra help if they are
victims of armed conflicts, neglect or inhuman treatment.
Self portrait made by a 6-year-old Iranian boy, Khalil
at the Macedonian-Greek border, in November 2015, where he spent 10 days with
his family in a tent
Unfortunately, there are still 11 Council of Europe member
states which have “conditional safeguards which do not provide full
protection against child statelessness”.
There are some programs all around in Europe, that found a
very innovative and efficient way to help these people to integrate.
The SIRIUS Network is establishing a partnership
between seven countries to address inadequate access to quality education for
asylum-seeking and refugee youth throughout the European Union.
In Ireland the National Parents Council Primary won the
ALCUIN Award for its work with Migrant Parents. In their program they work with
the parents to achieve the best result in helping the children.
The INCLUDED nonprofit organization works since 2006 in
difficult places, particularly the slums where migrants are crowded into
margins of big cities.
In Austria The Public Employment Service Austria (AMS) made
a research, and they realized that a very high percentage of refugees are
highly educated. The competency check help them to enter the job market
according to their degree.
In December 2015 the National Parents’ Committee for
Primary and Secondary Education (Norwegian abbreviation FUG) posted a letter to
the all local Parents’ Committees in all primary schools in Norway. FUG was
asking them to take actions regarding welcoming parents who is asylum seekers
to Norway and their children.
FUG was asking all parents in Norway to active include new
pupils and their parents at schools in Norway. FUG was also asking the elected
parents representatives and the local Parents’ Committees to take a special
responsibility in the work to include new pupils and their parents at schools.
In the letter FUG was also concerned about child poverty. It
is important that both the schools and the local Parents’ Committees remember
that the asylum seekers is poor when they are planning activities in connection
to school. ( In Norway public schools is free and it is forbidden to ask the
parents to pay for activities in schools).
FUG was also talking about “no hate speech” in the letter.
It is important that both parents and local Parents’ Committees work to
prevent hate speech. The local Parents’ Committees can arrange meetings
and trainings in how to combat hate speech.
UniPID has launched a project titled Supporting Immigrants
in Higher Education in Finland (SIMHE), which is funded by the Ministry of
Education and Culture (MEC). SIMHE acts as a pilot project for MEC`s national
initiative to reinforce the role of Finnish Higher Education Institutions
(HEIs) in supporting the integration of asylum seekers, refugees and other
immigrants. The project co-operates with a simultaneous pilot project of
Metropolia University of Applied Sciences. In the first phase of the project, the
services offered by SIMHE are mainly aimed at asylum seekers.
No comments:
Post a Comment