BY ANNAMARIA OLSSON
The article was originally publishedby Baltic Worlds, a scholarly journal of the Centre for Baltic and East European Studies at Södertörn University.
“Refugio? Oh, I really liked it there. We’ve gone back several times just to drink coffee and hang out. I met with a lawyer, but I saw there are yoga and music classes also,” Oksana said.
The artsy Ukrainian graphic designer had been in Germany for about six months and she was very clear about what made her appreciate the support she got. “We are refugees, but I don’t feel like one. I sure don’t want to be treated like one.”
Just a stone’s throw away from Hermannplatz, Neukölln’s beating heart and center, lies Refugio, the headquarters of the NGO I founded 10 years ago: An integrated co-housing, project space, and meeting point to break down barriers between old and new Berliners through sharing space, time, skills, and resources. Inclusion as a two-way process on the other side of the spectrum of what I sometimes call ”bed and breakfast integration”, managed by bureaucratic institutions. It’s a much slower process that continues way after urgent needs are covered, war fatigue kicked in and the media lost interest in refugees at train stations.
2015, amid the summer of migration, the house was founded by writers Sven and Elke Lager who got access to the building from the City Mission. The wish was to contribute with solutions for the topic on everyone’s lips: refugee integration. By then, Give Something Back To Berlin (GSBTB) had already made us a name in migrant support circles. Since 2013 we had built up a big grassroots movement of volunteering and skill-sharing all over Berlin. GSBTB was by no means a refugee project, it was a migrant led-community project that simply reacted to the current needs of the city. One of the most pressing was for modern and human-centered activism supporting newcomers.
THE FOUNDERS OF Refugio invited us to build up the house: To bring in life, activities, and the broader community since GSBTB was already working with self-organized refugee groups as well as NGOs all over Berlin. The buildings have six floors, three of which are residential, and house roughly 40 inhabitants of whom half have experienced forced displacement. The rest is project and office spaces, as well as artists and other NGOs. The rooftop has an urban garden and bees and acts as an extended living room for birthdays, BBQs and casual shisha catch ups. Above all, its breathtaking view over the city skyline is a constant reminder that whatever turbulence might be going on, in the outer or inner world, there is always a horizon and the sun will rise also tomorrow.
“One of the strengths of our project is the multi-facilitated provision offered within its frame. We organize up to 20 regular activities per week,” says Mine Nang, GSBTB’s German-Afghan community manager in her office. “Often people might start by joining the language café but end up as participants or volunteers in our music or cooking project. There people end up practicing what they learned in the language café. Our German one currently has around 100 participants every Tuesday but we also have English, Arabic, and women’s only cafés, all community-run. Newcomers also get integration courses from the state but they come with conditions and obligations. It creates a barrier. Of course, you need the language to integrate but the pressure can also become detrimental to learning success. Something that can also feel empowering or at least comforting for the participants with a story of displacement is also that all of our activities are mixed and not only offered to refugees. To see that also more privileged newcomers are struggling in the same way with the language, like it’s not only due to my refugee story, it’s a human experience of relocating,” Mine continues.
“Another big challenge after arriving is getting psycho-social support. Refugees need space to process their experiences but this is not something that is thought about or offered in the very beginning. In some cultures, this type of healing work doesn’t have a real space within society. It’s not common practice to go to therapy or self-help groups of different sorts.” She saw similar patterns both among the recent Ukrainian new arrivals as well as the Afghan-Iranian community that she knew both through her family history and the activism sphere. “Other things simply have priority in the beginning. For themselves and the receiving society. But it’s important to not lose sight of the women. A big need is safer spaces specifically for women and children. When the spaces are mixed men tend to dominate or it ends up with a focus on their problems.”
Continue reading the article on the website of Baltic World: balticworlds.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/BW_2023_60-70_OLSSON.pdf