The more affected you are by a problematic situation, the greater your interest in changing it for the better. The greater this interest, the more energy will be expended, and the more energy expended, the more likely it is that change will be achieved. Our approach to development cooperation, or DC for short, is based on this simple logic. To a certain extent, this equation corresponds to our everyday experience and is too plausible to be applied only to DC, as conclusions and instructions for action can also be drawn from it for personnel management in companies, for politics and even for family life. In this respect, we are pleased and not at all surprised that our latest project represents a proposed solution to the currently much-discussed integration problem. Mustafa Nasiri, a doctoral student at the University of Giessen, brought this project to our “Project Management Summer Academy” and was chosen as the winner of the presentation competition on the last day.
Mustafa is an exiled Afghan, a refugee who had to leave his country because, as he says himself, terrorists took power there in 2021. He shares his fate with thousands of other refugees, and with growing unease he observes the public debate on refugee policy drifting in ever more extreme directions. In principle, he has no objection to simple solutions, because his solution for successful integration is also simple: refugees look after refugees.
Mustafa is a member of a network of exiled Afghans who left their country years and some decades ago and have found a new home in Germany. They include doctors, teachers, plumbers and agricultural scientists like Mustafa. They are all integrated, they have succeeded, and they all suffer more than native German from the sluggish, ineffective integration system. In Mustafa’s experience, it takes 5 to 7 years for an Afghan refugee to integrate in Germany if he or she has to rely solely on the governmental structures. Endless visits to the authorities, endless waiting for a language course, no one to explain the logic of the separation of state and religion – all this leads to frustration, culture shock, misunderstandings and mistrust. What happens at the end of a cascade of frustration are not-so-rare cases of domestic violence in Afghan families and rare cases of extreme violence in public. The latter draws the image of refugees in society and fuels the debate on immigration policy.
Even if it is only a tiny proportion of criminal and violent people in the total number of migrants, their actions determine how society views everyone. The result is once again mistrust, hatred and violence, but this time among Germans against migrants. The vast majority of those who have long since integrated suffer as a result, they are viewed with suspicion on the street, they are denied housing, they are disadvantaged when looking for a job, etc., meaning they are confronted with unnecessary discrimination. In other words, they are being confronted with unnecessarily distressing situations that make it even more difficult for them to integrate, even though they have long since integrated.
Mustafa is therefore directly affected and has a very honest, almost selfish interest in changing the situation. His willingness to put energy into the matter is correspondingly high. He knows the problem of the ineffective integration system from his own experience and that of hundreds of others, and from equally direct experience he also knows how to make it work much better. In 2021, his younger brother Ali Sina came to Germany. Instead of letting him live in another city, Mustafa immediately brought him to Giessen and organised the necessary steps for integration himself. It took them two years and Ali Sina had a fixed employment as an engineer.
Not everyone has the prerequisites to become an engineer, but anyone can become a well-integrated part of society within two years, regardless of whether they are Afghan, Syrian or Sudanese, Mustafa is certain of this. The key is that a newcomer needs a compatriot who is already integrated, a mentor sharing the same cultural background who can smooth their integration. Together with his network of 700 exiled Afghans, Mustafa wants to create a mentoring programme and test it with 50 refugees in the first year. The free and very willing mentors are ready, as are the first 50 refugees; the psychological, medical, legal and other necessary support is available in the diaspora network, and Afghan social scientists will carry out the accompanying monitoring. However, there will be costs for the organisation, for travel within Germany and for self-organised language courses. Weltweit e.V. will provide the first €2000, and we are happy to invite further donations. Ultimately, this way of integration will only cost a fraction of the ineffective way of state institutions, and the best thing is that it will be more pleasant for everyone. That’s why Mustafa’s pilot project is called: Pathways to Joyful Integration. Integration is certainly more successful if it is also fun, for both sides, i.e. the newcomers and the long-established residents. We are convinced that Mustafa’s project is the right one, because it is based on self-organisation by those most affected, who are also the best qualified. Let’s do it!
