To begin with, Vluchtelingenwerk works on the theme of world citizenship by building bridges between refugees and Dutch people. The refugee crisis has been a very important subject within the Netherlands and everyone seems to have an opinion about it. However, Vluchtelingenwerk does not only cater to the refugees who just came to the Netherlands. It shows great efforts to make the refugees go back into society and become independent as soon as possible. This is significant because Vluchtelingenwerk is not only about the administration and the paperwork, but also for the refugees to take a stand in the society. This is realized by the fact that there is a project such as “Aan de slag” which allows refugees to get in touch with other people outside of the refugee centre. Furthermore, it allows people to become more tolerant towards refugees. When people work together or come to places where the refugees are volunteering, they will become exposed to how people actually behave in stead of believing everything the media says about refugees. This way, cultures and knowledge is interchanged and prejudices are minimalized. That is one of the few things world citizenship stands for.
Vluchtelingenwerk makes world citizenship also possible by working on SDG number 17. By welcoming refugees in the Netherlands we are contributing to peace, since the people have nowhere else to go. Furthermore, SDG 17 also focusses on strong institutions by making the policies clear. It also focuses on justice since all refugees get treated the same when they arrive in the Netherlands.
During the voluntary work a lot of desktop study and lots of interviews with fellow colleagues were done. The work at Vluchtelingenwerk can be done by just doing what you have to do. It involves a lot of phone calls to different sources and just figuring things out. The desktop research was done in order to find out the way refugees get housing and budgets. Because there are clear policies about that.
Furthermore, the communication with refugees is more different than I would communicate with fellow Dutch people. I learned this through practice and by having conversations with RD on how to behave when around refugees. Syrian men don’t shake hands with women. I noticed that they put their hands on their hearts and bow a little bit in stead of shaking my hand. I am completely fine with it not only because I am Muslim, I would have been fine with it if I weren’t one as well. This has to do with crossing each other’s boundaries and how to be tolerant towards each other. Vluchtelingenwerk really focuses on that from day to day. They are aware of the fact that the people who come for help, have not had a good relationship with the government and that there needs to be built trust first. Day by day, the volunteers of Vluchtelingenwerk are required to be a world citizen in order to do their job properly.
Imren Goes Beyond Borders 