EUKN - European Urban Knowledge Network - Somali youngsters, The Hague, The Netherlands

Somali youngsters, The Hague, The Netherlands

Introduction

A survey of the social environment of young Somalis in the city of The Hague resulted to a position reinforcing project for Somali youngsters in The Hague.

Problem

A survey of the social environment of young Somalis in the city of The Hague resulted to a position reinforcing project for Somali youngsters in The Hague.

How can the position of Somali youngsters in the city of The Hague be reinforced?

Description

How can the position of Somali youngsters in the city of The Hague be reinforced?

The project comprised activities in four areas:

Work and training: leading young Somalis towards work and/or training; via individual case management. This required removing existing obstacles and solving problems, e.g. truancy, addiction or housing problems.
Coaching: guiding Somali youngsters with problems at school. The aim of the coaching part of the project was to stimulate and give guidance to Somali youngsters taking an educational programme and finding difficulty with it.
Meaningful leisure activities: provision of a range of activities for Somali youngsters. This is a good way of offering young people structure and care and hence avoiding problems.
Skills enhancement: programme of training for employees of organisations that have dealings with Somali youngsters. Via a training programme these employees were able to acquire specific knowledge about the special cultural background of Somali youngsters.

Approach

Work and training: Via individual case management a number of youngsters were guided into employment programmes, regular jobs or mainstream education. The coaches sought out the young Somalis on the street, in community centres and in other places where they could be found.
Coaching: Because Somalis have strong community ties, it was decided to use coaches from the Somali community. Through contacts with schools and questionnaires it was possible to reach young people who could benefit from a coach. The coaches will supervise the youngsters for a period of one year. The weekly meetings consist of conversations, assistance with homework or an activity.
Meaningful leisure activities: The activities were organised in particular in the Schilderswijk and Escamp neighbourhoods of The Hague. Examples include the drop-in evening, sports events, computer courses, celebrations of Somali holidays and informative gatherings. In order to reach the youngsters it was decided mainly to pay house visits.
Skills enhancement: The training was provided by The Hague branch of Dutch Refugee Council.

Results

Work and training: up to March 2003 48 youngsters had been given a place in a programme.
Coaching: thirteen candidates were found in January 2003. They attended a training course at Centre 16/12. This Centre has experience in setting up a monitoring system for Maroccan yongsters. Six coaches were ultimately paired with a Somali youngster.
Meaningful leisure activities: the objective formulated was most defenitely achieved. It started with providing a safe place of their own for the Somali youngsters. The transfer to regular leisure activities is the next step.
Skills enhancement: in 2002, seven skills enhancement meetings were provided, attended by a total of 73 people. The objective was ten meetings and one hundred attendees. Organisations that attended were institutions in the sphere of case mangagement, education, socio-cultural training and the police.

Contact info

City of The Hague
Ms Ingrid Sijlbing, tel. +31 70 3537478

Project start date

18/02/2004

Links

City of The Hague European Refugee Fund

Document type

case

Themes

Urban Policy > Social inclusion & integration > Quality of life

Keywords

Skills improvement