Dec 19 2008
Accepting
Some other countries besides the United States that accept refugees are Australia, Finland, Norway, Switzerland, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Denmark, the United Kingdom, and Canada.
I wonder what it’s like, say, coming from the Democratic Republic of Congo, and stepping off of a plane in Norway-in January. Can you imagine? I don’t even want to. The cold, the dark, the snow. . .New language, new culture, completely different landscape. . .It all has to be completely overwhelming.
I lived in Scotland for a year, and the issue of refugees was very touchy there. Pretty much everyone seemed to at least know what a refugee is in general. That didn’t necessarily mean that pretty much everyone accepted them and helped them learn about their new world. I remember having a rather heated discussion with a lady that came to clean our flat once about the topic of refugees. She was pretty much disgusted by them. The general view is that they mooch off the government. The truth is, depending on their immigration status (As I understand it, there is a very long and complicated process to becoming an official refugee in the U.K.), they are not allowed to work.
I was a mentor for a young refugee in Scotland, and we spent some time together weekly going to museums, practicing English, etc. She said she received about thirty pounds every so often (I can’t remember if it was weekly or monthly.) for pocket money, and her flat was paid for. Thirty pounds was about $60 at the time. She was trying to get accepted to school, but that was a whole other issue, what with not having proof of schooling she’d already completed.
