Nasc’s Employment, Enterprise and Education Symposium
Integrating The Future
1 November 2007
Cork

Nasc, The Irish Immigrant Support Centre, hosted a One-Day Symposium on Thursday 1st November 2007 at the Jurys Cork Hotel, entitled "Integrating The Future".

The following is a condensed version of the speeches given by the speakers at the Symposium.
They were extracted from the DVD now available at Nasc.
Please contact Nasc to arrange viewing:

Brian Kearney-Grieves - Atlantic:
"Integration happens at the local and not the national level, and therefore I think today's symposium based here in Cork...tells us, what needs to be done? At the local level, but linking back up to and informing what happens at the national level."
"The final point or observation that I would like to make if we are to reap the benefits of integration and migration is the importance of language in all of this. And I'm not referring here to language education in terms of acquisition of Irish or English or other languages that are spoken here in Ireland so that the communities can actually communicate with each other, I'm talking about the language that we use when engaging with each other in the times ahead."

Kasia Kowalski - Account Assistant:
"I was basically afraid to open my mouth and I couldn't put a simple sentence together. But after sometime I realised that this barrier was in me because people were willing to listen carefully to me, and they're willing to speak slowly, and loudly. But I had to overcome my own barriers and my own limitations."
"There are obstacles in life, sometimes, but that's the way life is, and maybe it's easier to tackle them when we're at home, and it's a bit more difficult when we're in a stranger ground, but I believe that the approach we take makes things easier or more difficult..., and to me to be an immigrant it takes a bit of courage, willingness, hard work and risk."

Hafeez Rehman - Aiysha's Spice House:
"As a non-national, we tend to rely very much on our co-ethnic social networks. As a result of this, we are often unaware of the publicly available support services, and even if we are aware of those supports, there seems to be a lack of understanding of the types of services offered and the relevance of these services to the business. At the same time, many of these public support services are not fully equipped to deal with ethnic entrepreneurs, neither from their mindset, nor from their specialised knowledge."
"In the end, for a multicultural society, I would like to say it is not only Government or Irish community's responsibility to make it easy for integration. As a non-national, the duty lies on me as well to integrate into the local community, with an open heart, honesty, and trust."

Chantelle Kumba:
"To me, education and work is the best integrator because frequent interaction between immigrants and the Irish is a fundamental mechanism for integration."
"The amount of time people spend in the direct provision system can also de-skill somebody. There are a lot of professionals from African or Asia living in the direct provision system who are still going through the asylum process. But if somebody stays in direct provision for sometimes 5-7 years, the skills are going to go if you are not using those skills."
"What we do for the next 5 years in terms of employment and education will determine how Ireland will be in the next 50 years."

Niamh Linehan - National Qualifications Authority of Ireland:
"The NQAI is also the Centre for Academic Recognition of Foreign Qualifications in Ireland, which we call Qualifications Recognition, Features of Our Recognition Service:
1. It's free of charge to individuals, if your original qualifications are not in English; the applicant bears the cost of the translation into English.
2. It's available to individuals, employers, public bodies, etc.
3. We would deal with applications on a case by case basis.
4. Our work is steadily increasing, it was over 12,000 applications made during 2006, and we have passed that to date in 2007."
"Also new to our website is an international qualifications database, which has about ten or twelve countries there at the moment, and we have the main qualifications that occur in that country and their comparability in Ireland. There's a comparability statement which reflects it comparison to the Irish framework."

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Eamonn Noonan - KIM (Norway):
"It is an underreported but incontrovertible fact that immigrants have made Norway a richer country and a better place to live in. To our great delight, the Prime Minister said as much in his video address to KIM's annual conference this year."
"The goal, then, is to work for equal opportunity, and to work against factors that work against it."
"KIM is as far as I know the only body of its kind in Europe, where immigrant representatives have this opportunity for direct contact with authorities and parliamentarians."
"The lesson is that an active, inclusive approach towards recruiting from immigrant communities is in the interests of employers themselves."
"Let us be very clear: all the data suggests that social integration will not simply happen due to a natural process of some kind. It needs to be helped along, and policy makers as well as society as a whole have to be active, not passive, if the goal of equal opportunities is to be achieved."
"Immigrants have made Norway richer and a better country to live in. This simple message cannot be stated often enough."

Patrick Wintour - Director, Employability Forum (UK):
"We have got stuck in a rut arguing about whether immigration is a good thing or a bad thing, rather than accepting that migration happens and the question is - how best do we manage it?"
"The Government wants to help more refugees into work. Having a job is key to integration ... refugees face significant labour market disadvantage... this strategy introduces measures to: move more unemployed refugees into Jobcentre Plus support quickly after they receive refugee status, and ensure that JCP gives them the help they need to find sustainable employment."
"If we can accept a pragmatic definition of integration and use indicators that have already been developed for the population as whole, I think that we can start to treat migrants as ordinary (and extraordinary) people who have come to the UK or to the Republic of Ireland, or to Norway, France or Germany, and whose hopes and fears are no different to ours."

Jack Jedwab - Executive Director, Assoc. for Canadian Studies: Facilitating Migrants insertion (Canada):
"Indicators are interrelated: that is to say the ability to successfully address the economic condition of the migrant will have a bearing on the capacity to address the social dimension."
"Societies have varying needs and objectives. We need to determine integration priorities and deliver services on that basis...and who is best positioned to deliver services, i.e. Government, the Community Sector or Government/Community Partnerships"
"Immigration leads to a broader world view by opening the minds of Canadians to other cultures, increasing cultural knowledge and improving Canada's ability to accommodate other cultures"

Paul Dunbar, Research Consultant:
"The research was commissioned by Nasc and carried out independently by a team of 4 researchers. Our primary focus was to assess what barriers are experienced by migrants when they are seeking employment or wish to pursue training or education. The team of 4 researchers conducted a total of 72 interviews"
"A significant number of the African interviewees found it difficult to secure gainful employment, despite many having undertaken training and further education. Again, many were forced to work below their skill level and felt this was further evidence of discrimination on the basis of ethnic background"
"The research found that the migrants who undertook further study in Ireland in order to complement their prior learning greatly increased their job opportunities in Ireland"

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