Introduction

From 11 November till 24 December I have volunteered at Vluchtelingenwerk in Cuijk and Grave. The reason why I chose for this organization is because I had heard a lot about the refugee crisis but I was not aware of what it means to be working with that target group. I know that there is lots of commotion about refugees and how they are so spoiled, but I wanted to figure out for myself to what extent that was true. I had never encountered with a Syrian refugee before. Of course I had seen them in the supermarket or in the streets, but I had never been aware what the Dutch government was actually doing for them. In order to broaden my horizon on the way the Dutch government treats refugees, I decided to apply for volunteer work at Vluchtelingenwerk. 

Before starting the volunteer work I had come up with a couple of questions I was eager to learn more about:

Research questions

1. What does Vluchtelingenwerk do in order to stimulate the asylum seekers to learn the Dutch language?
2. In what way do the asylum seekers get help with housing and accommodation?
3. What do employees, interns or voluntary workers at Vluchtelingenwerk do on the daily? What do their main tasks consist of?

The learning objective of the voluntary work for me is to figure out for myself what the Netherlands is doing in order to help refugees. This learning objective goes hand in hand with SDG number 17: peace, justice and strong institutions. The desired outcome is a detailed answer to the 3 questions above and to gain insight how it is for a volunteer to work at Vluchtelingenwerk. I have never done any voluntary work before, so this is my first time and the outcome is important to me and the way I view refugees in the future. But also for the way I explain subjects about the refugees to my students.

Link to wix site: https://wordpress.com/home/imrenbeyondborders.music.blog