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Successful Integration - New Horizons for Migrants in Berlin, Germany

6 months in Berlin! It's been six months since I am in Berlin, six months full of interesting work, meetings and trips.

My project is about the integration of migrants in Berlin. I like my work here because it gives me the opportunity to maintain my linguistic skills (I am the translator of Arabic language according to my specialty) and be able to observe the migration policy of Germany. This experience is very useful for me, as it’s been a long time I am interested in migration in an international context, but even before that I worked only with internally displaced persons.

My working day involves a number of administrative tasks, including the registration of migrants for the integration course at our linguistic school Iberika Sprachschulen. This administrative process is not complicated, but time-consuming and requires attentiveness. I also often help with translation, because a big number of migrants came from the Middle East and not all of them speak German, even on the basic level.

In addition to administrative functions, my task is also to identify the basic needs and difficulties that migrants (students of our school) are facing. And it is not only learning-related problems. In order to do that we usually develop and conduct surveys. Analysis of questionnaire helps us to understand which problems are the most important so that we can provide students with useful links and direct them to relevant organizations that are qualified in these issues.

Groups in our school are very international, like the population of Berlin. A genuine multicultural environment! Every week we conduct extra-curricular integration meetings, where we practice German and simply communicate on a variety of topics. At the moment I'm also working on creating a blog for migrants - students of our school.

 

 

The great advantage of participating in the EVS project is the versatility of development. In addition to interesting work, there is also an opportunity to explore the cultural life of the Germany, to meet new friends, as well as to rethink your goals and priorities for the near future during this so-called "time-out" period, being far from usual working days that preceded the project.

Since September the history of my travels was complemented by the trip to Hamburg, Luneburg as well as Wroclaw and Krakow in Poland. Hamburg has impressed me a lot. It’s really an incredible unique city! The city has a specific atmosphere, primarily due to the large number of port warehouses located on both sides of the numerical channels. The city center is also quite interesting.

 

 

Among the nearest plans - a trip to Würzburg, where the second EVS training will be organized. I look forward to the training itself, as well as to the opportunity to visit Bavaria again, to meet new and “old” friends (from the first training in Munich).

 

Maiia Govorukha, 30 years old, Kyiv