The norwegian newspaper Dagbladet.no has an article today on an idea of solving the problem of asylum centres in Norway. The problem has existed for several years. Mainly due to a non-existing strategy from the government. Asylum seekers are put in highly temporary buildings, often abandoned military areas, or similar. And very often in more or less isolation from the Norwegian culture and inhabitants. Obviously this does not motivate for integration, working or any other productive or intelligent activity. The result is often that asylum seekers, even when accepted as a refugee is not integrated in the Norwegian culture and opposite, the Norwegian culture is not integrated with the refugees cultural background. A mismatch made for conflict. In essence the Norwegians are quite restricted on their views of asylum seekers – and I bet the refugees are a bit restrictive of the Norwegians as well.
As indicated, the main problem from my point of view is the isolated and “ghetto-like” first-meeting with Norway and Norwegian culture. The article in Dagbladet propose to solve this by rethinking the concept of asylum centers. The idea is to use agricultural farms (which they are quite a lot of in Norway) to be hosts for a small number of asylum seekers. At first these farms will be adapted farms primarily used for similar activities, such as helping social troubled persons and similar. However it is not far-fetched to expand this to include regular farms or even other types of industries which can be combined with working and living at the same place (i.e. fishing industry, forestry etc).
In my opinion this idea is brilliant. The quality of integration as well as the quality of the lives of the asylum seekers is bound to increase. As a side-effect the hosts (i.e. farm owners/workers etc) would probably also achieve a positive experience and could increase the quality of work/living for those also. This could in turn affect the decline in agricultural industries which are increasingly more prominent.
All in all – this is something which should be effectuated. Specific concerns should be to give the hosts proper education, proper financial support and to develop a proper system of non-obtrusive continous evaluation, feedback and support.
I give my full support to this idea! The best idea so far today!
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The news about solving the problem of asylum centres in Norway is interesting.