Monday, November 23, 2009

Asylum Seekers of the World Solution

As the global population expands and shifts demographically, there is an increasing number of skirmishes over resources, political upheaval, man made and natural disasters that make populations need to relocate. Regularly (mostly stable) countries all around the world have displaced members of our global community knocking on the door in various states of desperation asking for assistance in the form of residency. Every country's leaders are aware that this is becoming a more and more regular occurrence, with every likelihood of increasing with time. Some more hardline approaches is a zero tolerance policy on these unfortunates, treating the asylum seekers like criminals in the hope they will stop attempting to enter their domain. Besides being very unhumanitarian and an active neglect of their human rights, it only works in the short term as "desperate is what desperate does", and often the door will be knocked harder in the future, as in a battering ram. More humanitarian approaches is to be softer on the refugees, which is great for the human touch and feels good, but also leads to every stray in the global neighbourhood seeing it as the opportunity to get somewhere easily. Here is a solution that is good for all involved.
If the asylum seekers are recruited for 2 or 3 years in the service of the United Nations, that can be their opportunity to show their genuine helpfulness and skill to the global community. A metaphor could be that every time a tooth is knocked out in a fight, that tooth goes to serve the U.N., giving it more teeth. It is a lot better then sitting in a refugee camp, with nothing to do but feel hard done by, instead utilising their time and skills, or increasing their skills.

There could be various areas to work in such as:
1. Human rights advocacy
2. Humanitarian aide
3. Child protection
4. Education
5. Peace corps
6. Environmental disaster relief
7. Environmental work
8. Staff member aides
9. Counselling
10. Interpretation

While they do voluntary, possibly payed, work for the U.N., it gives the U.N. staff time and opportunity to get to know the asylum seekers, their personalities, skills and inclinations which puts them in a better position to knowledgeably place them in appropriate areas of the global community. It will also show their problem solving capabilities, cosmopolitan communication skills, integration likelihood, adaptability, and willingness to participate in team work with others who are different to themselves.
For the U.N. it turns what would be an administrative headache into a workforce, and the more number of refugees there are (let's say there are severe floods and several small wars in a glut), the more workers they will have to help resolve the situation. Also, if any of the refugees really shine, they get first pick!
Of course, some education and skills teaching would be needed, but a lot of refugees already have a lot of skills (bi-lingual, carpentry, legal knowledge etc) which are just waiting to be resourced. Also, if you teach a skill to one refugee, such as how to write a legal letter, they can teach the next, and so on. Also, as many are likely to spend time in a cosmopolitan metropolis, it helps to increase awareness, tolerance and understanding of other types of people. And after a preliminary 2 or 3 years, they can be allocated to a part of the global community that needs their skills and they are best suited to, reducing the likelihood of a repeat of the previous turmoil. Everyone involved, the U.N., the refugee, the adoptive country, even at times the old country, will come away feeling like they have been beneficial and benefited and feeling good.

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