Barriers of Language Issue for Migrants

Introduction

The United Kingdom and all other developed countries whose populations come from diverse background have a major concern to find strategies that would help to ensure the integration and social cohesion between all the communities. The issue has been written in states political and social agendas and influences strongly the ideologies of politic parties. Since its arrival at the office, the New Labour party has targeted social exclusion as a priority of its governmental social action. It set up Social Exclusion Unit in 1997 as a strategy to address some of the society’s difficult problems. Vincent (2003) claims that there is a widely accepted definition of social exclusion as “multidimensional disadvantage which is of substantial duration and which involves dissociation from the major social and occupational milieux of society.” In 2001 the UK government gave a definition to the concept that highlights the existence of inequality within the population. It explains that social exclusion can happen to anyone and recognises that some people are significantly more at risk than others. The definition confirms the results of research that has found that people with certain backgrounds and experiences were disproportionately likely to suffer social exclusion. Low income; family conflict; being in care; school problems; being an ex-prisoner; being from an ethnic minority; living in a deprived neighbourhood in urban and rural areas; mental health problems, age and disability were cited as key risk factors for social exclusion. Refugees and asylum seekers from former French colonies who have entered the UK to seek haven from wars’ horrors experiment the same disadvantages and social exclusion like the other minority groups who settled earlier in the country. Being of a French background makes it more difficult for them to interact within the community and integrate.

Despite governmental approaches to ensure integration hence social cohesion, gaps still be identified in statutory services delivery. The contribution of community and voluntary organisations through different regeneration and development programmes (Local Strategic Partnerships for example) is encouraged as often community leaders are of the same background and understand better community culture, values and beliefs. Phillimore et al. (2006) state that the integration is a two-way process in which both the individual and the state have a role to play. As community leaders, our role is to encourage and prepare communities to step forward into the integration process thus, play an active role in the citizenship. In this perspective French Connection project is being developed as a quarterly booklet to fill the gap in the provision of a digest information pack for the refugees and asylum seekers of French background living in Derby.

Although the term refugee will be used throughout the assignment to qualify the all group, it is essential to clarify the meaning of the two concepts: refugee and asylum seeker as defined by the Home Office. According to Refugee Council, The

Home Office defines an asylum seeker as a person who has lodged an asylum claim with the Immigration and Nationality Directorate (IND), and is awaiting a decision on that claim. A person is recognised as a refugee in the UK only if the Home Office finds that he/she meets the criteria laid down in the 1951 UN Convention on Refugees and accept his/her claims.

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Under this Convention a refugee is “ a person who is outside his/her country of nationality or habitual residence; has a well-founded fear of persecution because of his/her race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or political opinion; and is unable or unwilling to avail himself/herself of the protection of that country, or to return there, for fear of persecution." (Refugee Action 2007).

The project has a focus on two group of migrants: the refugees and the asylum seekers, particularly those whose countries were colonised by French or Belgian people. These former French and Belgian colonies have kept French as their administrative and educational language, thus French together with the native dialects have become their home languages.

The need of a written French information about the provision of services into the community was identified from informal communication, drop-in sessions and voluntary interpreting and translation carried on behalf of the Congolese community members by the Derbyshire Bondeko Congolese Association leaders. The lack of French literature was also noticed by reading leaflets and brochures published officially even by the local authority for public information (Appendix1). The design of this project is in fact a combination of supply and demand led type as it was being run because of the availability of funds from CEFET through Tiger 2 bids and because of the commitment to fill the gaps in service provision for the French community while completing the Work Based Project module.

Rationale

Setting this project was greatly influenced by the inequality observed in the statutory services provision and by our attempt to propose adequate solution to address the barriers that prevent the French speaker to effectively take an active part in the community life and integrate in the British community. The absence of mechanism to recruit bilingual staff to provide services in relation with French speakers needs reinforced our commitment to set this project and raise the awareness of decision-makers to the issue, (Appendix 2). Indeed, French speakers rely often on the community leadership to get help from diverse issues relating to spoken English skills.

The work-based project French Connection has been designed as a tool for the French speaking refugees and asylum seekers community to:

Inform them, in a language they better control, about the ways of accessing the available services.

Identify the barriers that prevent the integration into the British society, the education and the employment.

Raise the awareness of statutory service providers about the inequality in the service provision.

Methods

The designing of this project started with internal meetings using brainstorming technique as method to gather the ideas. ( Minute of this meeting was submitted with the Preparation for Work-based assignment). The technique was chosen because