Get A Plan:
The final “G” of the Three G’s method has to do with taking action and implementing economic strategies. Successful strategies to get ahead include re-evaluating and re-educating; seeking out available programs and services; setting up an achievable goal; and uniting to fight against structural oppression.
Reassess, Re-Evaluate and Re-Educate
Once migrants have recovered from misconceptions about life in Diaspora, they can begin to reassess their future. Upon arrival in the destination country, most migrants will usually have to re-evaluate their skills and consider re-training or re-educating. Studies have shown that one of the factors that help most in the initial post-migration period is to have a high level of skills. Furthermore, according to studies in the UK and South Africa, 30 per cent of migrants go on to obtain a new qualification in the host country. These trends suggest that upon arrival in the destination country, migrants need to be prepared to re-train, re-educate or change occupations.
In order to avoid dead-end ghetto-ized jobs and succeed beyond subsistence living, migrants will need to analyze the job market and attempt to supply a demand in the host country. They will also need to learn to exploit opportunities. This will require migrants to obtain some business knowledge in order to study the economy, find and fill a niche, or become an entrepreneur. Those who lack the entrepreneurial spirit and have no desire to strike out on their own should at least be willing to retrain or change occupations.
Research What Help is Available
In most Western democratic countries, free programs and services exist to help refugees and immigrants in need. These include programs and services that provide assistance with employment, education, housing, health, legal counsel family relocation and recovery from trauma. But because these programs are costly to run and limited in funding, most governments are not quick to advertise the fact that assistance is on offer. Consequently, it is left to the migrant to search and uncover what help is available. Migrants (even those who are undocumented) should never assume that help in unavailable. Even in some of the most un-inviting locations within the Diaspora, services exist to provide help to those in need. Existing help may be meager, but it can make a huge difference to those in dire straits.
More often than not, scholarships exist to help fund education, programs are available to provide benefits to unemployed workers and free counseling is offered to migrants with mental health issues. Yet migrants may be unaware that these programs exist in the host country, even after residing there for some time, and complicated government bureaucracies can make assistance appear unreachable. For example, undocumented seasonal migrant workers in South Africa are eligible for unemployment benefits during the off-season—the taxes are automatically deducted from their wages. But most migrants are unaware that they are eligible for these benefits. Most have been lead to believe that only South African natives are eligible, when in reality, undocumented migrants can claim these benefits needing nothing more than a proof of work contract.[i]
Therefore, upon arrival in the destination country, migrants need to put careful effort into researching what programs are available. When the migrant has exhausted all possibilities of government services, they can then turn to seeking out non-government and non-for-profit sources. Good locations to place inquiries are:
Employment centers
Humanitarian organizations
Mental health service centers
Women’s shelters
Education campuses
Churches and other religious institutions
Many of these places have programs, services and information specifically for immigrants or can at least act as referral centers to point toward agencies that can provide further assistance.
No comments:
Post a Comment