‘Friends for life’: how living with locals helped refugees feel at home in a new country theconversation com

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Sophie Alkhaled, Hans van Dijk, Lena Knappert, Quita Muis
‘Friends for life’: how living with locals helped refugees
feel at home in a new country
theconversation.com/friends-for-life-how-living-with-locals-helped-refugees-feel-at-home-in-a-new-country-172561
The large-scale evacuations from Afghanistan mean Afghan refugees are expected to settle
in Europe, the UK and the US in the coming years. Many European countries have
struggled with welcoming and integrating refugees, and are in need of new ideas and
systems to ease the process.
Resettlement creates challenging situations for both the refugees seeking a new life, and
for the communities in which they are placed. While many in these communities will feel
sympathy towards refugees, others are afraid of what foreign migrants moving into their
towns and villages might mean for their local socioeconomic environment.
While Europe is no stranger to mass migration, recent years have shown signs of social
and political struggle in trying to integrate vulnerable people from a different continent,
culture, religion and language in host communities. For example, Essex county has
offered support for Afghan refugees through temporary accomodation and other support,
but far-right groups have started anti-migrant campaigns in protest.
In 2017, following the resettlement of tens of thousands of Syrian refugees in the
Netherlands, we conducted a qualitative study of the resettlement and integration process
to better understand the experiences of both refugees and host communities. Our findings
provide a model for how communities can support the resettlement and integration of
Afghan refugees, and ease host communities’ anxieties and perceptions.
We conducted our study with Takecarebnb, a Dutch nongovernmental organisation that
matches refugees looking for temporary (up to three months) accommodation with
volunteers who are opening up their homes. A total of 51 hosts and 53 refugee guests