On the 10th of October the first official Refugee Academy meeting took place. Fronnie Biesma (Stichting Ondertussen) presented us a collection of stories and experiences from the past about reception and integration of newcomers. Afterwards and based on this presentation there was a public debate with interesting input.

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Early inclusive reception:
Where do we come from and where do we go?
Report on the VU Refugee Academy meeting. October 10th 2017. Location: VU
Amsterdam

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Table of content
Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………………….3
Reception: Welcoming newcomers………………………………………………………………………4
Integration: Rooting in and contributing to society……………………………………………………..8
Long-term: the role of professionals with refugee background……………………………………...11
Summing up……………………………………………………………………………………………….12
Five questions……………………………………………………………………………………………..13

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Introduction
In the past years, many initiatives have emerged to welcome refugees and support them in the
process of their integration into Dutch society. More and more initiatives from municipalities and
civil society focus on early inclusion and participation, starting in the asylum seeker centers. At
this point, it is time to reflect on what is needed to make this community-effort a durable and
effective contribution to creating an inclusive society. In this meeting, we have chosen to look at
this challenge starting from experiences and lessons from the past, which too often are lost in
this debate. So, we started from the perspective of a specific group of people, namely people
who have been living/or working in the world of reception, support and integration of refugees
for decades. To try to capture this perspective, Fronnie Biesma (Stichting Ondertussen) has
collected stories and experiences. Around 20 people were asked the following questions:
1. We mostly learn most from the frictions, from what did not work well. Can you give an
example of that and what lessons you have drawn from this for the rest of your life?
2. If someone now wants to start an initiative concerning azc’s, people that have fled,
what would be your major advice, your do’s and don’ts ?
The meeting started with the presentation in which the material collected was classified in. 1.
Welcoming, 2. Reception (and the position of children in the centres) and 3. Integration.
In the following, we develop these themes both on the basis of the stories presented , and of the
contributions of participants to the meeting in the discussion that followed.
This report ends with some questions that emerge from the discussion. These questions can be
used, in the future, to ‘keep each other awake’ about the pitfalls and challenges of building
spaces for inclusion. They will also further shape the learning path about the role of community
initiatives that we hope to develop with you all in the Refugee Academy.

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Reception: Welcoming newcomers
The stories presented by Fronnie suggest that it is important to make a distinction between
first reception and a next stage, which we might call building relationships. This is important,
because the warmth that is helpful and needed in a first welcoming phase, might not be what
is needed in the phase that comes directly after, in which newcomers are ready to engage in
personal, human relations and connections, based on equality. Such equal human relations
appear crucial to be able to ‘make roots’ in a new environment. In other words, the warmth and
care that can have a great function in a very first welcoming stage, might evolve into a
counterproductive patronizing tendency in later stages of welcoming.
We see this clearly in the collected stories, in which a recurrent theme is the distinction
between ‘emergency help’ (noodhulp) and ‘structural help’ (structurele hulp). The first is
necessary, the second might in some cases hinder the self-determination of newcomers and
their ability to build a new social identity in the Netherlands. There are many lessons to learn
from people who have been engaged with refugee world in the paste decades from different
positions. Sharing these stories are essential to connect with the past and to build further on
the lessons from the past. To create continuity in living and professional experiences and thus
in multiplicity of knowledge (The quotes cited here might not all have been explicitly included
in Fronnie’s presentation. The quotes that are reported in her sheets (see attached document
“Fronnie Biesma’s presentation”) illustrate further the points summarised in this report. The
stories collected were either in Dutch or in English. Some quotes are left in Dutch in this
report, because we wanted to convey the original tone of the respondent).
“Wat achteraf bezien niet goed ging is de paternalistische aanpak van alle mensen
met goede bedoelingen. Ruimte voor zelfontdekking en - ontplooiing was er
nauwelijks. Dit gebeurt nog steeds helaas. Men (en vrouw) wil graag “helpen”.
Noodhulp is essentieel maar structurele hulp belemmert genoemde zelfontplooiing.”
“Zelf heb ik gelukkig nooit in een AZC gezeten. Vrij snel had ik vrienden die met mij
dingen gingen doen die niets te maken hadden met een ‘vluchteling zijn’. We gingen
naar klassieke concerten, naar festivals, naar plekken waar ‘gewone mensen’ naartoe
gaan. Mijn redding was dus dat ik niet als ‘vluchteling’ werd benaderd en zo heb ik me
dus ook destijds niet gevoeld. Als ik ergens tegen aan liep of iets praktisch niet wist
kon ik het dus mijn vrienden vragen. Ik denk dat het niet werkt om allemaal mensen
die hier nog geen thuis hebben gevonden bij elkaar te zetten. Ook niet om hun
lotgenootschap te benadrukken. Dat lot heeft tijd nodig en komt vanzelf weer terug in
je geest en psyche om zich te laten verwerken als je als mens weer staat; op eigen
benen in een nieuwe natuurlijke bedding en weer wortels begint te schieten.”
“Whether there is a spot from where to start or there is someone to welcome and help
choose a path, it makes a difference”.
“Do explain things and engage in dialogue, because the Netherlands has no ‘cultural
canon’, unfortunately” [but:] “Never act in a refugee’s place, unless in the case of

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emergency help: you deprive him/her of the opportunity to get acquainted with the
Netherlands”.
These thoughts emphasize on the one side the significance of feeling welcome and of
finding connections with people that can help you find a way, and, on the other, the
importance of moving forward beyond the state of refugee-ness. This means to have the
possibility to develop oneself on multiple levels and not fixating on the refugee
experience or status.
“De dominante toon in het ‘vluchtelingen’ discours is er nog steeds een van medelijden
en slachtofferschap, hulp en problemen. Wanneer de normalisering van vluchten als
identiteit voortdurend gereproduceerd wordt, is het ook een voortdurende spanning om
hier weerstand aan te bieden. Actief en scherp blijven letten op hoe uitspraken over
mensen in azc’s geformuleerd worden”.
“Als ex-asielzoeker, die heel ervaren was met werken met ex Amvers in steden als
Amsterdam kwam ik aan bij de Amv campus om de jongeren te empoweren. Maar ik zag
dat de situatie van de jongeren zorgwekkend was. […]. Ik realiseerde me dat deze
jongeren de motiverende omgeving van het verleden missen en dat ze mensen nodig
hebben die naar hun durven kijken. Die kunnen zien wie ze zijn, wat ze kunnen en wat ze
willen. Ik was totaal uit balans.”
The lively discussion that we had during the meeting showed that we can learn much from
the past experiences related to these topical themes. So participants reflected on the notion
of humiliation vs dignity. It became clear that the feeling of humiliation does not have to
come from experiences of blatant exclusion but goes together with patronizing approaches
(which are often accompanied with good intentions). In addition the discussion highlighted
that the often assumed ‘professional distance’ in many programs and projects limits the
necessity of human contact which is crucial in refugee’s inclusion. There is need to discuss
how much distance is necessary and how to keep the needed contact in the process. The
challenge is then to balance distance and engagement in a professional manner instead of
keeping a protective kind of distance as professional asset. So one newcomer who
participated in the discussion remarked that sometimes “you have the feeling that you are
alien –but you are a person”. The Netherlands seemed at first the perfect place to him to “be
a person”, the place where he hoped to be accepted as an equal human being, after his own
fellow-citizens had intimated him to “go to the country of Christians”. What explains, instead,
the sense of being an alien that has permeated his first years here?
Having meaningful contacts with new people , building meaningful connections that help
shaping one’s life in the new country, is crucial to start dealing with the past, as we also know
also from decades of research on the experiences of refugees. ‘Meaningful connections’ are,
to start with, connections that enable personal, professional development but also enrichment
based on equal engagement. These connections facilitate growth and learning trajectories that
are multi-directional and are not based on an unequal relation between the helper and the

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helped. Building friendships is one important way to make such connections, although not the
only one. Friendships enable to go beyond the focus on someone’s refugee-ness (‘you are not
my friend because you are a refugee’) and help us challenge taken for granted ideas about
separate groups and identities (see also this link for a recent academic paper by Halleh
Ghorashi on this). However what came back several times during the meeting was the
necessity of support in the first years of stay in the Netherlands. Many refugees who arrive the
Netherlands face a rather complicated system and bureaucracy. But their lack of their
knowledge of the system does not mean that they are not knowledgeable in other ways. Thus,
the challenge is to assist these newcomers in their attempts to navigate the system without
reducing them to individuals who only need help. We were happy that several newcomers
participated actively in the discussion to make this point but also to differentiate. For some
people, this kind of support is more urgent than for others, as was strongly emphasized by an
Eritrean woman (not living in the Netherlands for long), who stressed the tough situation of her
fellow countrymen and -women and the urge for supporting people around.
The complexity and diversity involved in the issue indicates that the key lies in developing
better ways to listen to the needs, capabilities and ambitions of refugees, and to make a
connection between initiatives, projects or systems of support with the actual life trajectories of
newcomers. What might be patronizing for one, can be enabling for another. It is thus
important to keep reflecting and challenging assumptions within initiatives. An helping attitude
is natural, since we are helping people to enter a system they don’t know. But can we move
beyond the fixed roles of ‘helper’ vs ‘receiver’ and explore different ways to connect, which
offer newcomers the chance to contribute, instead of merely being receivers?
One way to go about this, according to the contributions to this meeting, is to:
“Visit newcomers (in azc) and just hang around as long as possible. Talk with as
many people as possible, and if you can talk to one person the whole day, just do
that. Go with the flow, no agenda, no expectations, no output. Only after you have
done this for a while (different days for sure) you give shape to your initiative together
with the people you have met.”
Or, as one young newcomer during our discussion stressed: “come into the azc and look,
you might see that we need very different things than what you had thought”. But also, as
was stressed in one of the stories by someone who has been working with newcomers for
many years:
“En hier komt de moeilijkste [van mijn adviezen]: ik ga naar een azc om te halen en
niet brengen. Ik probeer projecten uit te zetten waarin ik afhankelijk ben van de
doelgroep. Dus zonder doelgroep heb ik geen resultaat. Hoe dan ook brengt dit
gelijkwaardigheid in het geheel.”

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In other words, one way in which equality emerges is when the people consider ‘doing
projects together’ as something beneficial for all parties involved and not only focusing on
‘helping the other’ with a one way direction. This is crucial because the connection starts
from a hierarchical position for the people who just entered the society and need support.
For them to have a fulfilling start it is important to invest in meaningful connections. The
discussion around ‘welcoming’ leads to the following questions, which we can employ to
keep each other sharp in the future:
1. When does the phase of ‘warm welcoming’ stop and we step into a next phase of
building relations based on equality? What does it mean, in each of our own
contexts, to make such a step?
2. How can we build spaces that enable newcomers to participate in Dutch society,
without reducing their identity to their refugee experience? How can we connect
better the positive energy of people that want to mean something for refugees with
the life stories of refugees,
their actual experiences, ambitions, hopes and talents?

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Integration: Rooting in and contributing to society
The Dutch approach to the reception of refugees has gone through some changes since the
war in Syria and the increased flow of refugees into Europe. In the past decades, reception
has been institutionalized and bureaucratic, characterized by long periods of waiting in
seclusion and insecurity. However, since 2015 pilot projects and other experiments have
begun focused on early inclusion and participation of newcomers, with the idea that this would
enlarge the possibility of their long-term integration in the Dutch society.
Offering newcomers the chance to become active and participate in society as quick as
possible is in line with many insights from both research and practice that show the benefits of
it. However, as we remarked during our discussion, this positive development could also
backfire, in the case it raises unrealistic expectations about the performances and success of
refugees (“If refugees are allowed to work right away, why don’t they?”) Like in the metaphor
of the “plant” from Fronnie’s presentation (fig.1), which needs a fertile ground and suitable
biosphere to grow, it is important to remember that society must shape the basic conditions
for newcomers to be able to use their abilities and energy to build a successful life here. The
local shifts towards early inclusion make some of these conditions more favourable, but they
do not upheave all barriers to full participation into the Dutch society. Think for instance about
language: Experiments like in the “Amsterdamse aanpak” that couple learning Dutch with a
meaningful activity (work or training) work well, and are expected to enhance the abilities of
refugees, but will not change the fixation on perfect language skills that appears to affect our
society and that eventually hampers participation of refugees on the labour market. (Refugees
that have been here for decades and have put a lot of energy in learning Dutch, report that
their language is seen as “never good enough” to allow them to work on their level). Although
learning Dutch is important to be part of this society, inclusion can start earlier, as was
stressed by participants who mentioned the case of a person running a restaurant who
speaks only Arabic and by another remarking that, for instance, “a dentist speaking little
English can start to work right away”.
Fig. 1.

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In the answers by the older generations we see more barriers coming back:
As an African, I experienced that people assumed that I belonged to the group with
the largest distance to the Dutch culture. It was not only humiliating, didn't only
enforce exclusion, but most of all discouraged me to invest to join the social traffic in
the Netherland.
I am a refugee and my whole life exists of frictions with my environment, regardless of
what I am doing, which initiative I start.
So we do in the story of one of the participants to our discussion, a newcomer, who shared his
frustration about seeing all doors to work closed:
I want to work. But my talents are not recognized. In my country I had higher education,
but when I look for a job on my level, this is impossible because of my foreign
background. Since I really want to participate, not to be dependent, I looked for jobs on a
low level: That is also impossible, because they say I’m too highly educated. All routes to
participation are closed2
.
In the stories collected, we see also glimpses of what did help:
What went well and lingered with me was the access to a network where I was treated
equal. I wanted to improve my Dutch language faster by teaching children. My network
introduced me to a school where I could teach French and mathematics in return for
improving my Dutch by the pupils. Maybe the best time in the Netherlands.
This latter example shows another type of relation based on equal engagement. These type
of links allow newcomers to contribute, to make their baggage, talents and abilities
meaningful in the new context. This connects beautifully to the experience shared by one
participant from Gemeente Utrecht, concerning ‘Plan Einstein’, where social support projects
are organised to which both refugees as other citizens participate: Here you can see
refugees taking Dutch people by the hand and saying ‘ok, I will help you sorting this out’.
One other important discussion we had is about the meaning of voluntary work: many Dutch
people, institutions and organisations frame this as an important way towards participation.
However, not all newcomers see the value of it, and sometimes they express a suspicion that
voluntary work is a form of exploitation. Also, the experiences of and research about many
people with refugee experience show that sometimes refugees remain stuck in voluntary work
and never get the chance to progress towards a paid job. Also in this next phase of integration,
the risk is still that people in the direct environment keep on seeing a person primarily as
‘refugees’ instead of as a human being with multiple identities who can have different roles in
society.
The path towards employment might need to start on a lower level. But the challenge is to
brew the conditions for this low-level entrance to be a first step towards professional
development. Community initiatives can play an important role in giving shape to this path
together with newcomers. But also looking at this role of initiatives, it is important to be aware

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of hidden mechanisms of exclusion. See on this matter the following reflection by Maria Rast
(Refugee Academy researcher developing the research line about community initiatives)
Observations from Maria Rast’s preliminary research about the role of community initiatives:
Refugees within initiatives point out they sometimes feel as ‘monkeys’ (term used by
respondents) that can be ‘used’ to get acquainted with a refugee, to introduce children to
refugees, as examples of a ‘successful refugee’ or to tell about the success of the initiative. Even
the last two are examples of ‘othering’ and can be harmful. This way of exposing and exhibiting
success: 1. raises expectations -which raises pressure on the newcomers/initiatives; 2. might
distort reality -no one is perfect and no initiative is perfect, and this pressure to show successes
might prevent people to acknowledge and address problems in an open way 3. Backfires when
something goes wrong -disappointment can lead people to turn away from the initiative (‘I told
you so’ or ‘if he/they don’t even make it, who will’?).
However, it is undeniable that initiatives need the success stories and they need newcomers to
present themselves and the initiative; This is expected from public, the neighbours, visitors and
from the municipality and other funders. Changing this dynamic would make initiatives more
inclusive, but for this, the environment on which initiatives depend on needs to change as well.
The Refugee Academy learning path on community initiatives will therefore focus on the
following question (among other questions):
“How can we create larger and larger circles of awareness (or ‘waves of influence’) that reach
the actors who shape the condition for community initiatives to become inclusive spaces? Can
we support initiatives to create awareness and reflection on othering processes within and
outside the initiative itself?”
The discussion around integration brought us to following questions that help to keep each
other sharp in the future:
3. When does one stop being a ‘refugee’? If we think about the professional integration of
refugees – at what point does refugee-ness not matter anymore?
4. Can ‘starting low’ (for instance a lower level job or voluntary work instead of payed
work) evolve into a path that leads to ‘reaching high’, and, if so, what are conditions for
this?

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Long-term: in the role of professionals with refugee background
When looking at the long-term integration, and the role of ‘settled’ professionals with refugee
background, it is important to look at the experiences of people that have been here for
many years. The so-called ‘refugee crisis’, which has activated so many discussions,
projects, initiatives and reflections, offers an interesting context to reflect on their position in
the Dutch context. What is their role in this discussion? In some contexts, it seems like their
expertise is only valued as “experience experts” or “hands-on experts”
(ervaringsdeskundige). However, many of them are professionals who can also offer
relevant professional knowledge, in addition to their personal experience. What catches the
eye is their limited participation in the whole mobilization around ‘refugees’ in this latter
years (both the public debate and in the distribution of money for initiatives and projects).
It is important not to reduce their expertise and potential contribution only to their refugee
experience, but to value their multiple expertise and professional knowledge in this field in a
more complete way. In this sense, their relative absence could be seen as symptomatic for
the position of older generations of refugees in the Dutch context: Is Dutch society able to
look at their talent, knowledge and potential beyond their mere refugee-identity?
The question that emerges from our discussion on this point is thus:
5. Where is the place of professionals with refugee background in this new ‘hype’ about
refugees? Are they only ‘experience experts’ (ervaringdeskundigen) or professionals with
insights that have essential contributions to make in this process?

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Summing up
To sum up the combination of the collected stores and our discussions brings us to these
points:
1. Reception: Welcoming newcomers
• It is essential to think of refugee's inclusion in the Netherlands by investing in their
personal development as human beings. This means connecting to refugee's life stories,
needs, capabilities as the starting point.
• For this to happen we need to start with a good balance between structure and the
lifeworld of refugees and their surroundings during the reception (isolation, humiliation,
lack of connection with refugees' narratives in the beginning of their stay leads to long
term loss for refugees and societies)
• This means that societal initiatives about refugees, NGOs and governmental
organizations such as COA and academia need to work together to discuss the
challenges and reflect on the possibilities.
2. Integration: Rooting in and contributing to society
• It is essential that complexity of integration is not constantly reduced to failure of
refugees (having different lacks to find and keep a job). It is of great importance to
include the (un)willingness of organizations and the society in refugee’s inclusion. What
is for example needed to make the organizations inclusive enough.
• Do not fixate on refugees as others but consider them as members of the society and
treat them as such from the start. (So do not patronize them, essentialize their refugee-
ness or see them solely as carriers of lack).
3. Long term: the role of professionals with refugee background
• The low participation of professionals with refugee background in the present activity
around the ‘refugee issue’ raises the question whether the preconditions for their
participation in Dutch society as professionals (and not just as experience experts) are
realized.
The contrasting notions that were used to lead the discussion were:
• Dignity versus humiliation
• Attention for hidden talents versus fixation on lacks
• Focusing on human beings with multiple identities versus fixating on refugee identity
• Equal engagement versus patronizing.

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Five questions
We have distilled the following five questions, emerging from the discussion, which each of us
can use, in dialogue with each other, to ‘keep each other awake’ about the pitfalls and
challenges of building inclusion:
1. When does the phase of ‘warm welcoming’ stop and we step into a next phase of
building relations based on equality? What does it mean, in each of our own contexts, to
make such a step?
2. How can we build spaces that enable newcomers to participate in Dutch society,
without reducing their identity to their refugee experience? How can we connect better
the positive energy of people that want to mean something for refugees with the life
stories of refugees, their actual experiences, ambitions, hopes and talents?
3. When does one stop being a ‘refugee’? If we think about the professional integration
of refugees – at what point does refugee-ness not matter anymore?
4. Can ‘starting low’ (for instance a lower level job or voluntary work instead of payed
work) evolve into a path that leads to ‘reaching high’, and, if so, what are conditions for
this?
5. Where is the place of professionals with refugee background in this new hype about
refugees? Are they only ‘experience experts’ (ervaringdeskundigen) or professionals with
insights that have essential contributions to make in this process?