Working with asylum seekers
‘I’m actually doing something’
Door Lotte Kruijer
By Lotte Kruijer
Lotte Kruijer
Twenty-two-year-old law student Madelief Landwier was labouring over thick legal tomes while the world was on fire. War, poverty, famine; it never ended. ‘It was really starting to affect me and I started to wonder what I was doing to help. It felt like I was just a helpless bystander.’
So she decided to make a change. ‘I knew I couldn’t solve all the world’s problems, but I could pick one thing to focus on.’
Now, she volunteers one day a week at the asylum seekers’ centre in Assen, where she’s a legal coach. Helping people, instead of worrying about the state of the world, makes her feel good.
Legal coach might sound very official, but she mainly spends time hearing refugees’ personal stories. Madelief can tell them what to expect (a lot of waiting), answers their questions, and writes up a refugee analysis: the reason they fled their country of origin.
She enjoys that part of her work, she says. Refugees are in a very difficult situation and often need things we can’t give them. The one thing volunteers can do is listen.
Making a difference
‘It’s nice to be able to help out, even just a little.’ Madelief tends to be the first person who actually takes some time to listen to these people. ‘Something like that can really make a difference. It makes me feel good about myself.’
But Madelief doesn’t always leave work feeling happy. Sometimes, she has to give people bad news: that there’s nothing she can do for them, that their family won’t be allowed to join them, or that they’ll probably be sent back. It can be a lot. After all, she’s just a volunteer, not a professional.
‘Some stories really stay with me for a while’, she says. ‘Conversations like that are hard, it’s difficult to have to hear these kinds of things. But I still get energy from the work. I’m actually doing something.’
Making a difference makes me feel good about myself
Madelief sees how hopeful the people that come to Europe are. ‘And then we make them spend years in uncertainty. These people have gone through so much and they’re traumatised. They’ve been tortured during their travels or experienced violence in their home country. It’s so awful that it’s hard to imagine.’
But she’s since found a way to deal with it. The refugees are often moved from location to location and the procedures take so long that Madelief hardly ever knows what happens to people. That makes it easier for her to distance herself.
Waiting lists
Her work at the centre has made her see the refugee crisis in a different light. She always considered herself politically engaged and fairly well informed. ‘But things are very different to what I thought.’
If she had a say, she would invest time in getting through the waiting lists. ‘The assessment methods are really shoddy, but it’s the long wait times that make everything really chaotic.’ The current policy focuses too much on slowing down the process to deter people from coming to the Netherlands. But she’s found that this doesn’t work.
You’re holding these people’s lives in your hands
People often have to wait a year and a half to hear whether they’re allowed to stay. And if they are, they often have to stay in the asylum seekers’ centre until they find a place to live. Without a residence permit, they’re not allowed to work, they can’t take Dutch lessons, or do anything else. ‘All they’re allowed to do is sit in their room and wait. If these people, who’ve been through so much, don’t have anything to do, of course that leads to problems.’
Recently, a policy change has meant some people can work without a residence permit. That allows them to make a little money and participate in society, says Madelief. But that doesn’t do anything to solve the long wait times or people’s frustrations.
Whine and grouse
She reads a lot about the problems caused by refugees. ‘But then I think about that Syrian grandma who can’t read or write. We see these people everywhere. Some of them are incredibly sweet and grateful. And sure, there are also people who whine and grouse. But you can find people like that anywhere.’
She hasn’t regretted making this decision for a minute. Madelief even considered specialised in immigration law. But she later changed her mind.
‘We work with a lot of lawyers at the centre. They bear so much responsibility, and I don’t think I could handle that’, she says. ‘You’re basically holding these people’s lives in your hands. If you miss even the smallest thing, they get sent back or their family is barred from joining them. That’s too much of a burden for me to bear.’
But it’s clear that she wants to do something to benefit society. And she would recommend it to anyone. ‘It doesn’t matter what you do; sometimes it’s just good to focus on something other than yourself. It doesn’t have to be much or take up too much of your time. Just find something that works for you.’