Meeting the needs of asylum seekers A challenge for rural areas in Germany? Picture front page retrieved 10.03.2016 from http://www.vgwoerrstadt.de/index.phtml?NavID=1751.37&La=1 Wageningen University - Department of Social Sciences MSc Thesis Chair Group Knowledge Technology and Innovation ________________________________________________________________ Meeting the needs of asylum seekers A challenge for rural areas in Germany? March 2016 Master Development and Rural Innovation Leonie Dapper Specialisation Supervisor Management of Change: Inter-Human dr. R (Rico) Lie Processes and Communication Thesis code: CPT-80833 Abstract Due to recent developments, a lot of people worldwide are forced to leave their countries. Also Germany receives many asylum seekers at the moment. The German society supports them a lot. However, the question emerges, if the offered support meets the needs of the asylum seekers. By using a need assessment model, this thesis explored the needs of asylum seekers and the available social support services for them in order to see if the services are able to meet the needs of the asylum seeker. Emphasis was put in the analysis on the differentiation between formal and informal social support because previous studies with migrants showed that informal sources were preferred by them. Due to the fact, that situations of asylum seekers are not yet explored in rural settings, the study took place in a rural area in the west of Germany. Several villages around the town of Wörrstadt were explored. In total 16 interviews were conducted with asylum seekers and social support providers. Additionally, participant observation was used. The most important needs of the asylum seekers were learning the German language, finding a job and having clarity about their legal status. Different formal as well as informal social support services were found in the area of study, which served specific needs. The findings also showed that asylum seekers preferred informal social support over formal social support. The analysis suggests that both categories of social support services were not able to satisfy the needs of the asylum seekers effectively alone. However, by overlapping and complementing each other they were able to cover nearly all the needs of the asylum seekers in the area of study. This entails a need for the reformulation of the used assessment model and a rethinking of the organization of support services for asylum seekers. Key words: asylum seekers, need assessment, formal social support, informal social support, rural area i Preface You now hold my finish master thesis with the title `Meeting the needs of asylum seekers A challenge for rural areas in Germany?` in your hands. It is part of the master program of Development and Rural Innovation at Wageningen University. Writing a social science master thesis was a challenge for me because of my natural science background, but I really enjoyed it. I was thinking a long time about the topic of this thesis and I neglected a lot of them. What finally brought me to this topic was a sentence said by my mother. She was watching the news that reported about the increasing amount of asylum seekers in Germany. She said: `What will happen with all this people here?` This sentence and how she said it, stuck in my mind for a few days and finally led to the decision to write my thesis about asylum seekers. During the preparation for this thesis I finally decided to conduct it in my hometown. I am really happy about the fact that this was possible and hope that my findings will improve the support for the asylum seekers there. A lot of people contributed the success of this thesis, whom I want to thank here now. From the beginning on I felt very welcome in the area of study. Also it was my hometown, I was still new to the refugee relief group there. But I became part of it very fast. Everyone was open to my research and gave me all the information and support I needed. I really appreciate that. Whiteout the openness and support of the people there the thesis at hand would not have been possible. A big thanks to all of them who took the time and did an interview with me. Thank you very much as well to everyone who let me join their activities they organized for the asylum seekers. I also want to thank the municipality of the VG Wörrstadt that they gave me the permission to conduct this research. Furthermore, I want to thank the employees of the municipality for their willingness to let me accompany them. A special thanks to the team of the Café Willkommen project that you let me be an active part of your project. I always enjoyed spending the Thursdays with you. Keeping me informed about what was going on, contributes a lot to the thesis at hand. Without you I would have missed out a lot of important information. Of course, I am also grateful to the asylum seekers, who agreed to do an interview with me. Thank you for your openness and honesty. Without you, half of this thesis would not have been possible. I also want to thank my supervisor from Wageningen University, dr. R (Rico) Lie for supervising me and pointing me at interesting connections evolving in my data analysis. Finally, I want to thank my parents. Thanks to their support I was able to concentrate fully on writing this thesis and had not to worry about anything else. You always supported me with everything in my life. So I want to use the place here, to thank you for everything you made possible for me. ii Table of Content 1. Introduction ............................................................................................................... 1 1.1. Background and Problem statement .................................................................. 1 1.2. Objective and Research Question ...................................................................... 3 2. Theory ....................................................................................................................... 3 2.1. Definition of target group .................................................................................... 3 2.2. Integration .......................................................................................................... 5 2.3. Need assessment theory .................................................................................... 6 3. Literature review...................................................................................................... 10 3.1. Needs of asylum seekers, refugees and immigrants ........................................ 10 3.2. Social support for asylum seekers, refugees and immigrants .......................... 11 3.3. Needs satisfaction by social support ................................................................ 13 4. Methodology and methods ...................................................................................... 15 5. Data ........................................................................................................................ 22 5.1. Perspectives of asylum seekers ....................................................................... 22 5.2. Social support services ..................................................................................... 34 5.3. Views circulating within the social support provider network ............................ 49 6. Analysis ................................................................................................................... 51 6.1. Defining formal and informal social support services........................................ 51 6.2. Formal social support services ......................................................................... 54 6.3. Informal social support ..................................................................................... 59 6.4. Comparison of formal and informal social support services ............................. 63 6.5. Comparisons of views of the stakeholder groups ............................................. 64 7. Discussion and Conclusion ..................................................................................... 66 8. References .............................................................................................................. 76 9. Appendix ................................................................................................................. 83 9.1. Appendix 1 Map of the VG Wörrstadt ............................................................... 83 9.2. Appendix 2 Interview guides ............................................................................. 84 9.3. Appendix 3 List of individual social support topics ............................................ 88 iii List of tables Table 1 Comparison of terms .......................................................................................... 4 Table 2 Characteristics of formal and informal social support ......................................... 9 Table 3 Needs of asylum seekers ................................................................................. 33 Table 4 Priorities of needs ............................................................................................. 34 Table 5 Overview of the German courses in Saulheim .................................................. 43 Table 6 Social support services ..................................................................................... 53 Table 7 Comparison of formal social support services and needs ................................. 57 Table 8 Needs and formal social support services