Historically, the question of “integration” of migrants was always an important and conflictive issue in Germany. Even though, state-financed integration programmes were established very late and were not able to compensate their long...
moreHistorically, the question of “integration” of migrants was always an important and conflictive issue in Germany. Even though, state-financed integration programmes were established very late and were not able to compensate their long absence as far as desired. A very divided society was already shaped and many migrants were and are still living on the margins of German society.
In 2015, 10 years before the big “refugee crisis”, an official public integration programme was established in Germany and the state was able to start including migrants in a better organized way and even after 2015, considering the advantages of filling future labour-market gaps by the means of “integrating” a young generation of refugees and migrants.
This presentation figures out ideas, challenges and examples of integration, based on two different case studies carried out by Henrike von Dewitz in 2007 and Hassan Al-Zaza in 2018. It also illustrates the evolution of state-financed integration programmes.
In addition, it will provide a brief overview of the author´s experience while working in different social and education programmes for refugees in Germany and Slovenia between 2015 and 2017.
