Copenhagen: Asylum seekers busy as bees

Copenhagen: Asylum seekers busy as bees


Via the Copenhagen Post:

When Joseph* and his friends collected honey in Nigeria, they wore an extra layer of clothing, lit a torch and kicked the hive from the tree to take the swarm’s sweet nectar.

Now living at Sandholm Asylum Centre, Joseph is studying a more conventional method of beekeeping alongside more than 20 other asylum seekers at Copenhagen’s Bybi (City Bee Association).

The six-month training program, which began in March, is a joint initiative between Bybi and the Danish Red Cross, with support from the Roskilde Festival Fund.

(source)

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Germany: ‘Berlin Needs You!’

Germany: ‘Berlin Needs You!’

Via Eurasia Review:

There are many examples of initiatives on both local and regional levels that are successfully addressing integration in Germany – especially when it comes to young people.

One of these initiatives is “Berlin needs you!”, a campaign borne out of the need to support immigrant youth, including 2nd and 3rd generation immigrants, in Berlin. The majority of participants come from Muslim backgrounds, and the programme helps them navigate the German vocational training system and find careers in the public sector. When the programme began in 2006, only 8 per cent of those who had completed vocational training in public service and state-run companies came from immigrant backgrounds. The number climbed to 19 per cent in 2010 and the programme aims to reach 25 per cent soon.

(source)

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Belgium: Moroccan Expatriates to Back Development Initiatives at Home

Belgium: Moroccan Expatriates to Back Development Initiatives at Home

Via StarAfrica:

IOM and the Belgian Embassy in Rabat have signed an agreement to launch an innovative project aimed at encouraging Moroccans living in Belgium to start businesses back home in Morocco.

The EUR 1.2 million, two-year programme seeks to encourage Moroccan expatriates to invest their savings, knowledge and expertise into the setting up of private ventures that will further the development of impoverished regions in the north and east of the country.  

(source)

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Athens: Immigrants squeak out living as scrap metal mongers

Athens: Immigrants squeak out living as scrap metal mongers

Via AFP:

The business is evidence of the poverty in which thousands of illegal immigrants live in Greece, a gateway to the EU but a trap for those who do not manage to continue their journey to more prosperous member states.

"There is no other kind of work here," said Zeeshan, who arrived from Pakistan a year and a half ago on a trip that cost him 3,000 euros ($4,000).

The 26-year-old said he had studied computer design back home, but now spends 10 hours a day rummaging through the blue rubbish bins that the city has distributed to collect recyclable trash.

Zeeshan said he is able to make a couple of dozen euros per day.

(source)

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Belgium: High unemployment among non-Europeans

Belgium: High unemployment among non-Europeans

(left: employment by nationality, right: employment by land of birth. red: women, blue: men)

Just half of non-European men are employed in Belgium. Among women, employment rates drop to around 25%. The situation is better among non-Europeans holding Belgian citizenship: close to 60% of men and 40% of women are employed. The EU wants to bring down the difference between Europeans and non-Europeans down to less than 16.5%. In Belgium, the difference grew over the past four years from 27% to 28.6%.

Employment Minister De Coninck says this is due to the fact that many asylum-seekers were regularized for medical reasons and cannot work. (source 1, 2)

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Helsinki: Muxlim Shuts Down, Promotes Biography

Helsinki: Muxlim Shuts Down, Promotes Biography

Via Arctic Startup:

The Helsinki-based social network site aimed at the world's muslim community, Muxlim, has shut down and now points to DisruptionManifesto.com, a teaser page for founder Mohamed El-Fatatry's new biography authored by David Cord.

(source)

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