17.11.2018

Internship at refugee aid in Germany

In the practical part of the two-week partnership workshop "So strangers become friends", the participants experienced in the week from 7 to 14 November what everyday life looks like in church and diaconal refugee aid in Germany. The migration services of the Diakonie Wuppertal, the ecumenical department of the church district Dortmund, the Diakonie Mark-Ruhr in Hagen as well as the Diakonie Saar were visited and here the Saarland's state reception centre with the "Anker Centre" in Lebach. The refugee counselling centre of Diakonie Saar presented the facility to the international experts in migration and refugee work from the UEM churches in talks and provided information about all facets of the counselling services on the subject of migration and integration. In this way, the participants from Africa and Asia in particular gained an insight into the wide range of offers for refugees and learned everything about the Dublin Agreement, the special challenges with regard to unaccompanied minors, language and integration courses, what lies behind the abbreviation BAMF (namely the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees) and when a refugee has a chance of a positive asylum decision. In the evaluation round, the participants exchanged their respective experiences and named the advantages and challenges of refugee work. Offers such as kindergarten, health care, pocket money, trauma healing and the warm reception were on the positive side. The difficult living and housing conditions of some refugees as well as the fact that the participating aid organisations Diakonie, Caritas and the Red Cross receive state funds for their work were recognised as challenges. The church representatives from Africa and Asia regarded the high dependence on state funds as ambivalent. In the encounters with the people who had fled to Germany, the fact that some Muslim refugees from Iran and Afghanistan converted here to Christianity met with particular interest. As reason the converts stated that they experienced peace, freedom, including freedom of faith, security, tolerance and love in Christ for the first time in Germany. In their view, the Church would not have had to provide the help and warm welcome, but the fact that it did and still does, prompted the newcomers to re-answer their own faith questions in a process lasting several months. The fact that many of the newly baptized tell their positive experiences to their Muslim family members at home is proof of their fundamental conviction. Rev. Agustinus Purba, director of the Karo Batak Church in Sumatra, Indonesia, summarized his impressions of the work of Diakonie Mark-Ruhr in Hagen as follows: "Although the situation in Germany cannot be compared with the diaconal work of our church in Sumatra, because we care for internally displaced people as a result of several Sinabung volcanic eruptions, I nevertheless take some experiences home with me. It is impressive to see how the Church and Diakonie in Germany welcome the refugees, provide them with food and shelter, medical care, legal support and language courses regardless of religion and all this with love and care in the Christian sense. The fact that many people in Germany support the refugee work as volunteers in different areas impressed me just as much". Based on their own experiences, the international participants of the workshop came to the conclusion that within the framework of a refugee aid characterized by love and mutual consideration, strangers can become friends. Martina Pauly