Saturday, December 29, 2012

About Reintegration Center Armenia



According to IOM,  about 100 children and minors of Armenian heritage returned from Germany to Armenia every year since 2002. These children and adolescents face particular problems of reintegration; on the one hand, the migration experience can be traumatic, particularly for younger and more vulnerable people such as children, and in the consequence, the affected minors can suffer from psychological issues or show behavioral disorders. On the other hand, many of the affected group grew up at least partially abroad and have only limited access or relation to the culture and language in their country of origin. Likewise, the geographically and culturally splitted socialisation can lead to a problematic biography through differences in educative systems which can effectively exclude returned children and minors from the access to relevant parts of the job market. Even when the returnee children have learned to speak Armenian, the ability to write the language correctly is much more limited due to the oral learning access within their families. The combination of these factors can install a significant barrier for the sustainable success of reintegrative measures. 


Location of Armenia in Europe

Based on the applicants experiences in the field of humanitarian, voluntary return, particularly of minors and families and the follow-up reintegration of these remigrants, specific support and reintegrative measures for families and children are a useful tool to establish the sustainability of the reintegrative process as a countermeasure to the alienation process many adolescents have to face when they are confronted with a new and foreign environment. Even though they are officially Armenian, these children are not necessarily socialized within this context and do not necessarily self-identify with the culture, customs and language of their country of origin. This lack of self-identification is a severe problem for any reintegration activities, as no one will be integrated against his or her will. 

To soften the impact of these issues, the well-proven practices of the voluntary accompanied return management will be implemented for the Armenian beneficiaries. These measures include counsel and preparation prior to the return, assistance and support during the return and the phase of reintegration and counsel and limited material support for the reestablishment of economic stability and independence.  The chosen measures are based on the experiences the applicant has gathered in more of a decade of activities in this area.

To face the relevant issues, the RECEA-project is targeted to establish a centre for reintegration measures to particularly cope with the specific problems of children and adolescents who have made the migration experience. The centre will offer pedagogic and psychologic services for minors and their families, but also integrative recreative measures for children and youths with and without the migration background, in addition to language and alphabetification classes for migrants to learn the Armenian language (and in several cases, the separate alphabet). To strengthen the bonds between remigrant children and youths and the 'native' children of the same age, the social and cultural activities of the centre will be inclusive i.e. targeted at both minors with and without the migration background.