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Getting Asylum Seekers into Employment – Challenges and Opportunities

June 2006

Over 100 participants from nearly all EU countries attended an EQUAL Exchange Event 'Getting Asylum Seekers into Employment - Challenges and Opportunities' in Chania, on the beautiful island of Crete (Greece) on 1-2 June 2006.

This event provided the opportunity for Development Partnerships from the first and second rounds of EQUAL who have implemented projects aimed at getting asylum seekers into employment to meet, and identify, discuss and exchange their experiences and the successful and promising practices they have developed.

An introductory plenary session set the scene for the event with presentations from a variety of stakeholders, including representatives from EQUAL DP partners, the UNHCR, the Greek Corporate Social Responsibility Network, Shell Greece, and Heraklion Chamber of Commerce and Industry. Participants shared good practices and Exchange of experience exchanged their experiences of getting asylum seekers into employment during five interactive workshops organised around the themes of employer relations, preparing asylum seekers for labour market access, new employment profiles, creating work experiences, and other activities to get asylum seekers into work (skills audits, awareness-raising, networking, etc.) During the closing session, participants presented the conclusions and recommendations formulated during the workshops.

The two-day EQUAL Exchange Event took place at the historical Centre for Mediterranean Architecture in the centre of the port city of Chania in Western Crete. Participants included DP partners from nearly all EU Member States, and representatives from the EQUAL national authorities, the European Commission, NGOs, employers and other actors from the corporate sector.

The event opened with a plenary session in the morning of June 1st, where participants were welcomed to Chania by the city's Deputy Mayor. During the presentations which followed, the Greek EQUAL partnership presented the good practices they had implemented under Round 1 of EQUAL and a representative from UNHCR Greece gave the necessary background to the EU Reception Directive and presented its most relevant articles, the most important of which for the Exchange Event was Article 11 on access to employment for asylum seekers. This was followed by presentations by the Greek Corporate Social Responsibility Network, Shell Greece, and the Heraklion Chamber of Commerce which provided excellent examples of successful employer relations and highlighted positive experiences of employing asylum seekers and how effective partnerships can be built between projects and employers to get asylum seekers into the labour market.

Complementarities and synergies

The afternoon session of the first day and the morning of the second featured five interactive workshops where participants were able to meet in small groups and exchange and discuss successful practices implemented under Round 1 and the promising practices which are emerging from Round 2. This encouraged a transfer of learning and experience between Round 1 and Round 2 EQUAL partnerships. The sharing of practices and experiences among all the workshop participants also allowed for the identification of complementarities and synergies. Participants were also able to learn about the particular policy contexts and regulations governing the employment of asylum seekers in place in different Member States. Important conclusions and recommendations were formulated by participants to be presented during the Event's closing session.

A Greeting by the children of the ANOGEIA reception center

We are a handful of children of about the same age, wounded by the same destiny, scarred by blood and suffering, who have sought a better life and the right of each individual to dream freely.

We left behind ashes, ruins, dead and missing persons. We wondered for days in harsh mountains, steep cliffs and foreign, enemy lands. We fought with forceful waves and suspicious people. We met death, face to face. We were afraid, we felt weak, and we wept at each other's shoulder. We felt alone in the world's enormity, strangers among strangers. Children without a family, without a country, without a future.

However, God has taught us to see always the bright sun behind the clouds. And this sun has been for us your country, Greece, which has hosted us. Here we were offered a warm hug, security, people who trust us and who love us. Now we sleep without nightmares and sounds of gunfire to frighten us.

We loved this place, we learnt its language, learnt to make friends, to trust again the people and to win each day their respect. We had courage again to make dreams for the future: a home, a job, a country.

Besides the great gratitude, which we feel for you, we ask you to let us live lawfully in this new home, in this new country.

An organised excursion to a reception centre for unaccompanied asylum seekers was a chance for the EQUAL Exchange Event's participants to see and experience "reality on the ground". After a winding bus trip through the Cretan countryside and up Mount Psiloritis to the hilltop village of Anogia, participants were able to meet the 25 young men from Afghanistan and Pakistan housed at the reception centre. They welcomed their visitors and showed them around their home away from home, while telling them about their life in Crete and the activities they're involved in, and showing them the exquisite artwork and handicrafts they had created at the centre. The reception centre's director welcomed the visitors and told them about the services and activities offered by the centre to unaccompanied minors who arrive in Greece to seek asylum. A young asylum seeker gave a moving account of the painful and difficult experiences he and many of his friends at the centre had been through, and the hope they felt on their arrival in Greece and the start of a new life, through a poem he and his friends had written (see box).

The EQUAL Exchange Event concluded with a closing session which highlighted the conclusions which had come out of the discussions and important policy lessons with regard to the integration of asylum seekers into the labour market. The Exchange Event had provided an opportunity to successfully highlight the models of best practice to promote the employment of asylum seekers which have been recognised and disseminated under Round 1 and a number of promising practices currently emerging under Round 2. Participants agreed that activities promoting the employment of asylum seekers benefit not only the target group but also help to increase cultural awareness in the host society and decrease health care and social costs. Employers also benefit through the increased cultural diversity of their workforce and an improved social profile. Participants concluded that employers and other actors could be encouraged to highlight their positive experiences of employing asylum seekers and to act as a pressure group to make an impact on policy makers. The need to increase visibility by publishing good practices and spreading news and positive experiences in the media was also highlighted.

Pressing need to open access to the labour market

The recommendations formulated during workshops pointed to the pressing need to open access to the labour market for asylum seekers in all EU Member States so that they may be able to make the best use of their skills and abilities while developing new ones and making a contribution to the host society. In view of the upcoming Policy Forum planned in Sweden in November 2006, recommendations included inviting companies with a positive experience of hiring asylum seekers to the Forum and featuring good practices on how to create labour market niches and new employment profiles. Relevant studies on the costs and benefits of employing asylum seekers could also be presented. Another important recommendation was directed towards future ESF programming: asylum seekers should explicitly be included as a target group in the new national ESF programmes that are currently being developed. The successful results from Round 1 of EQUAL and the promising practices being implemented in Round 2 can provide excellent examples of good practices.

The EQUAL Exchange Event provided an opportunity for EQUAL projects from across the EU to learn from each other and identify lessons that are potentially transferable from one DP and national context to another. The important conclusions and policy messages and recommendations which came out of the event have been able to inform the upcoming future Policy Forum and future ESF programming.

Feedback received on the EQUAL Exchange Event from participants expressed an appreciation for the relevance of the plenary presentations on employer relations and the opportunity provided to exchange and analyse experiences and good practices through the interactive workshops. Participants also appreciated the chance to learn about the different contexts and practices concerning the socio-economic integration of asylum seekers in different EU Member States. Such an event presented participants with the possibility of networking and building relevant contacts across borders. It was also an opportunity to let others know about the dissemination activities, future events and innovative products which are being developed by EQUAL partnership across the EU.

The full report on the event :

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