Making Migrants Feel Welcome

The Kontaktepool project of the Station Wien association recently celebrated its third anniversary. Ferhan Umancan, director of Station Wien, and Martina Sinowatz, director of the Kontaktepool, gave wieninternational.at some more precise details about how they successfully manage to convey intercultural contacts for leisure activities.

About 200 people from around 20 different nations have already been brought together in Vienna by the intercultural project Kontaktepool. For Sandra Frauenberger, Executive City Councillor for Integration, this is a major contribution towards helping people to live and work together: “The work of Kontaktepool is a prime example of projects that specifically encourage people to live together peacefully without the trimmings of multicultural romanticism.” People who are interested in intercultural friendships and language learning (“Tandem”) as well as learning assistance for bilingual children are always welcome.
 

WI: How was the idea for the Kontaktepool born?

Sinowatz: The Station Wien association offers German courses for migrants. Many of the participants often complained that they hardly had any opportunity to use what they had learned as they had no contact with Austrians.

Umancan: We noticed that the women – it is mainly women who take part in the German courses – do not make much progress with their knowledge of German. When communication is lacking, the motivation to carry on learning disappears automatically.

Sinowatz: In principle three forms of creating contacts have developed: first of all there are primarily pensioners who help bilingual children with their homework. Many students are interested in the “learning tandems”, for instance. They meet the foreigners to learn their mother tongue and in return they teach them German. Others are looking for intercultural leisure contacts and find out a lot about foreign civilisations by speaking German with the migrants.

Umancan: For us it is important that Kontaktepool is not an aid project. For the adults it is based on reciprocity so that both sides benefit from the contact.
 

WI: How has the project developed over the past three years?

Umancan: We noticed that to begin with more people met to engage in leisure activities or to exchange language learning, whereas nowadays support for foreign children in school is of prime importance.

Sinowatz: We try to respond as far as possible to the problems of the migrants. We offer lectures on topics which we know are important for the foreign families. For instance, we had workshops on the following subjects: “What makes Austrians tick?” “What makes migrants tick?” From 2009 we are planning a kind of jour fixe eight times a year so that we can discuss current problems and then enjoy ourselves afterwards in some kind of cultural activity.

Ferhan Umancan (left) and Martina Sinowatz (right) provide support for migrants

 
WI: How is the Station Wien association supported by the city authorities and what other kind of help does Vienna offer for migrants?

Umancan: The association was founded by private individuals; I am one of the founding members. Primarily we receive financial support from the city of Vienna. Over the last month or so, “Start Vienna”, as part of Municipal Department 17, has set up an information desk for immigrants. There they are made to feel welcome and given help as they take their first steps in the new country. That is excellent because until now we didn’t have anything like this in Vienna.
 

WI: In your opinion what is particularly important to ensure that migrants can settle in well?

Sinowatz: The most important thing is that they are made to feel welcome. Then of course it is helpful to learn German and to be open for the other cultures in Vienna.
 

WI: Are the migrants prepared to do this?

Sinowatz: The majority of participants in our German courses are highly motivated and very hard-working.

Umancan: The problem begins when communication with the rest of society is lacking. Then people lose their motivation. That is why the Kontaktepool is so important, and what it has to offer is popular with the migrants.

Sinowatz: It is a phenomenon of cities that people do not easily come into contact with their own neighbours. This habit of checking regularly to see how the neighbours are getting on, regardless of which country they come from, is something we are again trying to encourage. What is also important for feeling at home in a foreign country is having equal opportunities in education and on the job market.
 

WI: What creates the greatest problems when foreigners and locals try to live together?

Umancan: First and foremost it is the mutual prejudices which are created by the lack of communication. And the fact that migrants really are often regarded as aliens.





WI: The immigrants who seek help from you – which countries do they mainly come from?

Umancan/Sinowatz: Most of them come from Turkey, from the Arabic world and from former Yugoslavia. The rest is a mixture; people come to us from China, India, Nigeria, Peru and many other countries.


WI: What is the percentage in the Kontaktepool between migrants and locals and between men and women?

Sinowatz: We have many more migrants than locals. This results from the fact that we have nothing special on offer for Austrians but only make ourselves known through newspaper articles or parties. The percentage of women is higher both in the case of migrants as well as the Austrians. The foreign men are out at work usually. They take on communication with outsiders – in some cases this is a result of their background – and in so doing they learn German more quickly. We don’t know why more Austrian women than men seem to be more interested in making intercultural contacts.



 

WI: Does Station Wien help migrants to find jobs?

Umancan: We advise the people who come to us and explain to them what possibilities they have. We also help them to write applications for jobs. Moreover we offer training for migrants so that they can take care of children. In particular for our programme “Mummy is learning German” we need carers who can take care of the participants’ children during the courses. The need for kindergarten teachers with knowledge of foreign languages is very high in Vienna so that some of our carers opt to work in the city’s kindergartens.

 
WI: Can you remember any story about people who have been particularly helped by Station Vienna and Kontaktepool?

Sinowatz/Umancan: There are very many moving stories. Our colleague Ingrid Blasge has most personal contact with the people and can tell us a story

Ingrid Blasge  (representative of _Kontaktepool_): One of our first contact situations in connection with Kontaktepool was between an Austrian satirist and a Turkish mother with two children. The artist looked quite like a punk, with lots of piercings and the like, and we were worried about what the Turkish woman would think of him. However, this contact turned out to be a real success: the daughter learned such good English from him that she won a prize at her school and was able to take a free trip to Bulgaria. She herself is now 16 years old and through our contacts regularly meets a woman to exchange languages. In this way she can pass on some of the help that she herself received.