Integration passes by school

In the small district of Mersch, in the centre of Luxembourg, in a social housing apartment there is a special school that brings together youths aged 17-24 from across the Grand-Duchy “to teach them French and the culture of Luxembourg also with dedicated trips, visits to Museums and to the most important monuments”. The “special classes” are the result of a Luxembourg Caritas initiative set up in 2001, the school coordinator Cristina Lopes told Sarah Numico for SIR Europe. It constitutes an authentic path of social integration and inclusion for foreigners, largely supported by the ministry for the Family and Integration. Also Caritas has contributed, as the requests largely outnumber the places offered through public funding. In July as many as 48 youths have “graduated” from the school. What are the “special classes”, in detail? “It’s a school year that we make available to young migrants in particular and asylum-seekers who need to learn the language or develop their French language skills older than compulsory school age, and therefore they cannot be integrated within the ordinary school system. But as they don’t speak any of the country’s languages (; ma (Luxembourgish, French and German – ed.’s) they need this form of support to access further education, university, or the job market”. How did the idea of the school come about? “We started in 2001 with a class of young asylum-seekers, also thanks to grants from the European Refugee Fund until 2008, when the funding was interrupted because the deadline of the project was over and the Ministry for the Family covered the costs starting in 2009, when we set up a second class, with two levels: beginners and advanced. The project was consolidated with the Law on aid to youths and children, and our centre became a socio-professional inclusion school”. How many foreigners attend the courses and which countries do they come from? “At the beginning of the school-year 2014-2015 there were almost ninety youths. But many of them were repatriated or freely decided to return to their home countries, others got a job. However, 26 youths obtained “beginners” and 14 an “advanced” diploma. We then had to set up another class, owing to the high number of requests, with a teacher paid by Caritas and 10 more students. For the past years most of them are Portuguese-speaking (from Cape Verde, Portugal, Brazil, Guinea Bissau); there also are young people from the Balkans, Albanians, Chinese. This year for the first time a Syrian girl attended our courses”. How do you involve them? “They are contacted in different ways: through the welcome service of the Ministry of Education or by word of mouth of people who attended our courses, and also through Caritas social services”. What are the future prospects of these youths? “Some of them find a job, others continue the regular school system of Luxembourg and attend high-school or university, as was the case of a young man from Cape Verde who had started law school in Portugal. He then moved to Luxembourg to join his family, but since he couldn’t afford a language course he came to us for help. He managed to enrol in college and will graduate from university at the end of the coming year”. Your service extends beyond language teaching… “These young people have many social, economic and family problems. In many cases they lived many years apart from their parents and reunite here in Luxembourg to a mother and father whom often they do not know. Since they spend most of their time in school, from 10 am to 3 p.m. we realize there are some problems, and when these emerge we try to face them with the students and sometimes we also involve their parents if we realize the problems are complex. We avail ourselves of other Caritas services. Sometimes we experience the frustration of not being able to find solutions for these youths…” Future prospects? “We hope to have more means: we work with little at the moment. If we had more resources we could increase the number of places and services offered”.