Glasgow has become home to a large number of asylum seekers and refugees who are allocated a place in social housing around the city. When people arrive in a new country, especially those who have fled for their lives from a dangerous situation and who assume they are heading to a place of relative safety, they often face extreme difficulties with bureaucracy, legislation and also a less than welcoming attitude from the communities in which they find themselves.
At a meeting yesterday with a worker with the Integration Network in Glasgow we spoke of the difficulties people in the host community have of understanding and communicating with those who are from a different culture. Often the onus to change and integrate is placed only on the shoulders of the person coming into the new culture. The Project Co-ordinator of one of the network centres explained to me that she sees ‘integration’ in a slightly different way. While the person arriving in the new culture will have to learn new ways of doing things we also need to recognise that if we are going to provide a place of refuge and safety for people then ‘integration’ must be a community responsibility as well. For this reason she prefers to see her work as ‘community development’ with integration as a main goal within that rather than integration as the only purpose. This means that she makes sure that all the events and services she provides are advertised across the whole community and not just targeted at those who are ‘foreigners’. She encourages everyone in the community to see ‘integration’ as something they can be involved in.
In an article in the The Researcher in 2008, Tiffy Allen, now National Co-ordinator of City of Sanctuary, highlighted the effect of culture shock on newly arrived refugees and asylum seekers. She encouraged governments and agencies to be aware that the adjustment and integration process is going to be more effective if everyone plays a part, rather than leaving it all to those who have had to leave their home, family and friends and all things familiar behind.
