Erasmus Refugees group
Iceland 2017
Gabriel, Bjartur, Sara, Kristrún, Althea, Gerasimos, Álvaro & Edgar
Refugees
Company: The red cross
Funded by the Government
Should be providing refugees with all Necessities
Social activities to integrate refugees into society
Hafsteinn (Director of the Red cross branch in Reykjavík), Þórir (Hafnafjörður) and Arndís (Lawyer)
Refugees
Company: Solaris
No help from the Government
Help refugees and asylum seekers to get furniture, books and entertainment
Sema Erna Serdar
Interview Questions
1.Is muslim religion a problem here?
2.Why is the Government in Iceland allowing such a small number of refugees into the country compared to other european countries?
3.Is there some kind of wild camp with no control over the refugees
4.What are the differences between legal and illegal refugees?
5.How long does it take to be accepted and have a normal life?
6.Is it hard to get the Government to help?
7.Who is providing them with food and a place to live in?
8.Is it easy for refugee children to get into school? do they get special help?
9.How do they get medical treatment?
Refugees
Is Muslim religion a problem here?
Refugees
Why is the Government in Iceland allowing such a small number of refugees into the country compared to other european countries?
- Exponential growth of asylum petitions (from barely 100 a year to over 1000)
- Slowness of the government to process every petition
- Iceland is a Island so it is very hard to get here without permission or passports
Refugees
Is there some kind of a “wild camp” with no control on refugees from the state? (like in Calais, France)
- There are no wild camps in Iceland, all refugee settlements are controlled
Refugees
Differences between legal and illegal refugees / Are there illegal refugees?
- There is no such a thing in Iceland
- Sema says that there are no illegal people, everyone should be able to go anywhere
- Every refugee’s situation is evaluated before allowing or denying his/her stay
- When you send the government a request to get the status of refugee in Iceland you are no longer “illegal”
Refugees
How long does it take to be accepted and to have a normal life?
- It depends, normally between a month and a year
- Bussinesses created by refugees
- Children learn Icelandic
Refugees
Is it hard to get the Government to help?
- It’s fluctuant, there are people willing to help (like the president) and others who don’t want to hear from the topic.
Refugees
Who is providing them with food and a place to live in?
- Housing provided by the government
- They are given money (around 8000 kr.) each week to spend on food mainly
- Very poor conditions in the houses
Refugees
Is it easy for refugee children to get into school? Do they get special help?
- Sema thinks it’s an easy task
- The Red Cross believes it’s not easy
- They are sent to school soon after getting their permission
- Permissions can take a long time (2 weeks - 5 years)
Refugees
How do they get medical treatment?
- Poor very basic treatment while being an asylum seeker
- Entering the normal public wealth service when having refugee status
Refugees
Balance between both interviews: similarities and differences
- Both agree that a lot more could be done with Government support and funding
- They agree that the Red cross was not getting enough money from the Government
- Very limited social programmes to help refugees to integrate
- Disagreed on how easy/hard it was for refugee children to get into school
- The government is taking way too long to process everything.
Refugees
Conclusions
- The situation in Iceland is not the worse but could really be improved
- Completely unknown how it will evolve through years (Iceland is behind)
- We got a realistic view of how the actual conditions are
- Both organisations are coherent with each other so we imagine it’s the truth (their answers were very similar)
Refugees
In which way did our participation in the project change our opinions about European citizenship?
THANK YOU!