Abdul Manaf is a 36-year-old Afghan refugee who lives in Metz, in eastern France. A former interpreter for the French Army, he now makes his living as a bicycle courier for the food delivery platform Uber Eats. Come rain or come shine, the father-of-two sets out in perilous traffic on a daily basis and faces cut-throat competition from other couriers. This is his story.
The Espero association near Paris is offering free courses to refugees and asylum seekers to learn about beekeeping, permaculture and composting. They hope these courses will lead to better integration in France. InfoMigrants went along to meet up with the apprentice beekeepers and their teachers.
Last week the International Organization for Migration (IOM) hosted a job and training fair for returned migrants in Cote d'Ivoire to help them reintegrate and find work in their home country.
More and more asylum seekers and refugees in Germany are getting jobs. The government's Commissioner for Integration says employment prospects for migrants are better than expected. But she says women remain at a disadvantage.
The Italian authorities have arrested three people involved in the exploitation of migrants. The migrants had been working as underpaid shepherds in conditions harmful to their health in the southern region of Puglia.
The UN Migration Agency IOM has just completed an EU-funded pilot project called LINK IT. The project intended to boost integration outcomes for Syrian refugees resettled in the EU; namely in Germany, Portugal, Romania and the UK. LINK IT focused on strengthening links between pre-departure and post-arrival integration support for refugees.
Getting work in Germany can be difficult, especially for migrants. Many end up working illegally, but if they are caught, the penalty can be as severe as prison or deportation.
The European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) has just released new findings on corruption in the EU. One of the areas where corruption was discovered to be rife was in the field of migration, particularly in Italy. The country links the misuse of funds to notorious organized crime networks and public officials.
As Germany tries to fill critical gaps in its skilled workforce, officials are recognizing more foreign professional degrees. Nurses, doctors and other health care professionals had the highest rates of approval.
The Refugee Journalism Project (RJP) was set up in 2016 in London to support migrant, refugee and exiled journalists kick start their careers in the UK. Its idea is to create a network for its participants and hook them up with mentor journalists. The initiative is coming to the end of its second year and is about to start recruiting for a third intake, project director Vivienne Francis explains.
Being a refugee with a regular income can be expensive: German municipalities make refugees with personal earnings pay part of the rental fees if they live in shared accommodations. Hundreds of euros for a bed in a shared room are the norm. Researchers and refugee advocates criticize a lack of transparency and asylum seekers' little influence on their accommodation due to the difficulty of finding a regular apartment.
In 2008, Ahmed was shot while working as a paramedic in Lebanon during an internal conflict between Shia and Sunni. He arrived in the UK three years ago after a second shooting made him fear for his life. He has been seeking asylum ever since. While his case is still pending, he can’t work and is destitute. Last September he started teaching Lebanese cooking classes with ‘Migrateful’ and the charity has become ‘like a family’ to him.