Internship Report PAX – The Story of a Refugee

Internship Report

PAX – The Story of a Refugee

Name: Miriam van Voornveld

Student number: S2222043

Email: miriamvanvoornveld@hotmail.com

Home university: Rijksuniversiteit Groningen (Netherlands)

Host university: Uppsala University (Sweden)

Internship organisation: PAX

Address: Hoog Catharijne, Godebaldkwartier 74, 3511 DZ Utrecht

Telephone: 030 233 3346

NOHA internship coordinator: drs. E.M. Herman-Pletiougina

PAX internship Supervisor: drs. I. Ruijs

Period of internship: from 23 August 2016 until 31 January 2017

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Preface

In this internship report, I will look back at my internship period with PAX. With

gratefulness and melancholy, I look back at the great time I had within this organization

and especially within the project ‘The Story of a Refugee’. I met a lot of amazing people. I

want to thank PAX and especially Iris Ruijs and Philo Offermans for the great

opportunities they gave me within the project, and Daphne Dijkman for being my fellow

intern within the project and working so closely together. Also, I want to thank all the

schools we visited, but especially Lek en Linge (Culemborg), ROC ter AA (Helmond),

Landstede (Zwolle) and A Roland Holst College (Hilversum) for helping me with the data

collection for my research. And I want to thank the Syrian speakers I met and whit

whom I spend a lot of time doing visits and traveling to schools, churches, and other

civic society organisations. They really thought me a lot, not only professionally but also

personally.

At the end of January 2017, our project received over 2 million euro from Goed Geld Gala

from the Dutch lottery (Postcode Loterij) for our project. With this amazing news, my

official part of the internship got to an end. They always say ‘quit while your ahead’, isn’t

it?!

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Tabel of Content

Preface ... 2

1. Introduction ... 4

2. The internship organisation ... 5

3. Tasks and activities of the internship ... 6

4. Supervision of the Internship ... 7

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1. Introduction

Polarization, refugees, peacebuilding, interventions and research are for a long-time topics that interest me a lot. With my background in Sociology (both Bachelor and Master degree), I developed interest in doing research with practical outcomes and implications. In this way, research can be used to help develop or improve projects. During the NOHA programme, I gained more knowledge about the humanitarian action field. I did my second semester in Uppsala, where I followed the specialisation Peace Conflict and Religion. As Syria was a major subject in newspapers and television, this conflict interested me a lot. It was also for one of the classes that we had to interview a in our view ‘brave person’, and with a group of NOHA students we interviewed a Syrian woman who fled the country and now was an undercover journalist. I was so intrigued by this woman her personal story, that from then on my interest became also more into refugees in general, and refugees from Syria in particular.

When it was time to start thinking about an internship, and about the place and organisation where the internship should be carried out, I first had two particular preferences in my head: first of all I wanted a practical internship (as my previous experiences were mainly in research and science), and second of all I would prefer to work abroad on refugee issues or health related subjects. By coincidence, I saw the vacancy of PAX for an intern within the project ‘Story of a refugee’. This vacancy interested me immediately. As the political climate in the Netherlands (and the world) changes, I saw that there is not only an urge to work with refugees abroad, but also within the Netherlands. With names as Wilders and Trump working against the reception and acceptance of refugees, I found out that in the Netherlands a lot could be done either. As I saw that this internship was rather practical, aimed at creating dialogue between Syrian refugees and students, I immediately felt that this would be the perfect fit for me. Besides that, I also wanted to conduct my thesis within this project. As I experienced previously that a lot of interventions are not based on scientific knowledge or effectiveness studies of programs, I thought it would be interesting to research the theory of change behind this project and the effectiveness of this project, to be able to give practical implications based on research. I first called PAX to speak with the internship provider, and we discussed this option by phone. After that, I applied, was invited for an interview and got the internship. There was also another intern hired with whom I worked on the daily running of the project.

I initially got the following contract: 3 days a week working on the daily running of the project, one day a week working on the project effectiveness research (total of 4 days) until December. However, my supervisor asked me to stay longer, so in January I still worked 4 days per week for PAX and in February and March I have a contract for 1 day a week for PAX. I was asked to stay longer to mainly visiting school with Syrian speakers for my research and collecting data at schools, but also to help to coordinate the project and help the new two interns and the new project manager/leader (as my internship coordinator is with maternity leave) in the first month of January.

5 within this project (Syrian speakers, schools and other NGO’s), and wanted to experience how these work together.

Second of all, I had expectations regarding my research. I wanted to gain more scientific knowledge about polarization, interventions, and intergroup contact. Also, I wanted to give practical implications for the project and thereby help it develop.

Thirdly, I had specific goals regarding the organisation PAX. I wanted to learn how it is to work in the Netherlands in such an NGO (which is working on peace worldwide). I did not only want to gain more knowledge about the project group and the communication department, but also the other project groups working on other subjects. As I already followed the work of PAX for a longer time, this internship would be a great opportunity to learn more about both the project and the organisation.

2. The internship organisation

PAX is an international peace organization. With partners in different countries all over the world, PAX tries to build just and peaceful societies across the globe. The mission statement of PAX is “PAX works together with committed citizens and partners to protect civilians against acts

of war, to end armed violence, and to build a just peace”.

PAX has 5 main pillars where they work on. They are: ‘protection of civilians’, ‘humanitarian disarmament’, ‘natural resources, conflicts & human rights’, ‘community based security & civil rights’, and ‘dealing with the past’. Those pillars are incorporated in different projects. PAX works on these 5 themes in 15 countries in the Middle East, Africa, Europe and Latin America. PAX is for example working in Colombia on human rights, works on peace in South Sudan, and has programs to create dialogue between civilians in Iraq.

According to the latest annual report of PAX (2015), PAX has approximately 110 employees working for them, and 52 volunteers. Their budget was approximately 16 million euro in 2015.

2.2 Project ‘The Story of a Refugee’

Since the end of 2015, the project Story of a Refugee started. The project arose out of question from a school in Helmond. Ingeborg Krook, a social science teacher at ROC ter AA, came across a lot of extreme opinions from students with regard to refugees, and according to her the opinions were very polarized. Therefore, she contacted different organizations (under which PAX was one), and asked whether there was someone who could share knowledge or a personal story. One of the volunteers of PAX (a Syrian ‘refugee’) therefore went to the school and shared his personal story. As the reactions were very positive, and the word spread among other teachers, PAX got more requests and so the project called “The Story of a Refugee” was born.

6 The goal of the project is to create better understanding for the positions of Syrian refugees in the Netherlands. They try to do this by talking with them, instead of about them. Up until January 2017, approximately 200 classes or projects have been visited, with more than 4800 listeners (mainly students). The project initially consisted of one project leader (Iris Ruijs), and two interns. Now, as the project grows and PAX as organisation also starts a project group on the item ‘refugees’, a communication officer and a program leader ‘refugees’ are recently hired. The project is part of the communication department, which consists of approximately 20 people. In total, there are 17 Syrian speakers now working in our project, with ages ranging from 18 years old till 45 years old. The groups consist of 3 Syrian women, the rest are men. The project is still growing, and therefore we are hiring new Syrian speakers.

3. Tasks and activities of the internship

The main task of this internship was within the project itself, but also conducting research and some small tasks organisation-wide were carried out. I will discuss these three different aspects here.

3.1 Tasks and activities within the project

The tasks within the project were first of all planning and maintaining the project. Between September 2016 and January 2017, together with another intern, we have visited and planned 115 classes/gatherings and reached approximately 2840 people. I have accompanied various Syrian speakers on many visits, and it has been very interesting to learn more about the Syrian conflict and the bravery of many of the refugees. Besides having contact with the Syrian

speakers, I maintained a lot of contact with teachers of schools, churches and other civil society organisations.

One of our main tasks was also to provide the Syrian guest speakers with feedback and work on improving their presentations. After each session, we always discussed their presentations with the guest speakers. Sometimes, the speakers (or even students) got emotional during their presentations. Also, we had to evaluate with the teachers how they thought the presentations were going and which improvements could be made according to them.

Additionally, my task was to do the promotion of the project by contacting schools and by the use of social media. In this way, I learned how to actively promote to both cold contacts (schools we have not worked with before), and warm contacts (contact we have visited before).

Besides that, we have enlarged the group of Syrian speakers and have organised a training weekend for the new speakers regarding the Dutch school system, giving presentations,

prejudices they may encounter and the project in general. Also, I joined and help run a workshop about the psychological wellbeing of the speakers in our project. Furthermore, I gave a

presentation/information session about our project to all interested PAX employees as part of the annual ‘inspiration days’ organized yearly by PAX. In this evening, we also discussed and brainstormed about future directions of the project.

One small part of my internship was also working on and collaborating with the Humanity House and Red Cross on their project ‘Vluchteling in Beeld’. In a collaboration with these

7 of this project and organized by PAX). I joined as PAX representative at the official launch of this online module and spoke to the present press.

3.2 Tasks and activities within the research

As stated before, I conducted my master thesis within this internship. I am conducting research on what influence this project has (or can have) on the understanding and acceptance of

refugees. I started by looking in to the existing literature about interethnic contact and the ways interventions are used to gain understanding for the situation of refugees. For this research, I conducted questionnaires and got in contact with four different schools. Those were Lek en Linge (Culemborg), ROC ter AA (Helmond), Landstede (Zwolle) and A Roland Holst College (Hilversum). I had intensive contact with these schools and I visited all of these schools three times (one time for the pre-questionnaire, one time with the visit of Syrian guest speaker, and one time with the post-questionnaire). I am currently working on statistically analysing this data and writing my thesis.

PAX also carried out a little research themselves, involving 750 short questionnaires. With the help of a volunteer filling these questionnaires in for me in Excel, I researched those initial outcomes. I statistically analysed this for PAX and discussed it with the project leader.

3.3 Tasks and activities within the organisation

I was also enrolled in different small activities within the organisation. These were:

- The annual Inspiration Days. Inspiration days are 2 days full of workshops organized for the whole organization. Courses, brainstorm about projects, etc.

- Workshop on corporate communication: workshop on how to enhance and disseminating the corporate communication

- Campaigning against Colombian Blood Coal: working with the project team of Colombia on activism in the Netherlands. Providing information to employees of company NUON (a Dutch energy company uses Coal from Colombia whereby people are killed and

removed from their property) and handing out flyers on a market in Amsterdam with the Colombia team from PAX.

- Joining PAX with the Trump protests on Malieveld in The Hague. Holland against Hate: Protest in The Hague against the ‘Muslim ban’ of Trump.

4. Supervision of the Internship

The supervision of the internship was initially done by Iris Ruijs (from 23 August 2016 until 31 December 2016). We had (when possible) a meeting on every Monday to discuss the state of affairs, but also my goals within PAX and our input on the project. Besides the official feedback moments, when we were both working in the office, I had a lot of contact moments with my supervisor Iris Ruijs.

8 rules for this. Besides of this small issue, the collaboration was very pleasant and I have shared a lot with her.

The new program leader Philo Offermans then replaced Iris in January 2017. We discussed things as hiring new interns, whereby I also joined an interview. We worked closely together on the project, and she followed up on things for her new interns that we suggested: e.g. for the first time watching a presentation instead of presenting immediately) and also a work phone for the new interns were arranged. As I was mainly out of the office (visiting schools and working on my thesis), I did not have that much time together.

5. Conclusion

5.1 Personal and intrinsic learning effects

What I have personally learned within this internship is working practically in a project, and all the different aspect that are involved. As I worked closely together with different Syrian

refugees, but also with experts within PAX about Syria, I have gained so much knowledge about the conflict in Syria, how people personally experience war, but also the difficulties refugees in the Netherlands encounter. I am super intrigued by the personal stories, and by the bravery of freedom fighters and peaceful demonstrators. But I also learned the difficulty, importance and challenges of creating mutual understanding between students and Syrian refugees.

I also learned that there are many more facets and stakeholders involved in such a project than I previously thought of. The intensive contact was not only with Syrian speakers, but also with head of schools, teachers and students. I developed my presentation skills, as I visited over 30 high school classes. I got more confidence in talking before big groups, whether those are students, church attendances or colleagues. Also, I learned to work in a more hands-on, flexible way. As in this project you are dependent on so many external factors (public transport, the Syrian refugees, schools that invited you), I often had to deal with uncertain situations. On the spot decision making and dealing with a lot of responsibility is something I definitely learned during this project.

5.2 fulfilment of personal goals and expectations

As noted before, I had expectations on three different levels: not only on the project level, but I also had certain expectations related to doing research and evaluating the project, and

expectation towards learning about the whole organization. Here I will discuss the three of them.

Project ‘Story of a Refugee’

My main goal for this internship was learning about the ins and outs of the project ‘Story of a refugee’, working practically in this project, and how projects like these are carried out and improved. Personally, I wanted also to learn more about refugees, or Syrian refugees in particular, by not only reading about the conflict by also by the personal stories of Syrian

9 communication with teachers, churches and other NGO’s had thought me a lot about all the different parties that are involved in this project and about how to deal with each of those. As the other intern and me got to keep this project rolling mainly on our own, we experienced a lot of freedom and responsibilities.

Also, what I found super interesting, is to work in a changing political climate and very different opinions. As we visited students from all education levels (vmbo, havo, vwo), I

encountered a lot of different political opinions and opinions towards refugees. Guiding such a conversation or discussion in a peaceful and respecting manner was therefore sometimes a real challenge, but therefore also highly interesting and instructive. That’s also the part that I found the most difficult: how to handle the sometimes ‘rude’ statements or opinions of students. This is something that only occurred three times, but nevertheless a very good learning moment. Often the speakers handled this of themselves, but not to lose yourself in a polarized discussion is something that I have learned.

The research

For the research, I wanted to gain more knowledge about the theory of change of this intervention, and to find out how this can be improved. As the project was not based on literature or science, but as it was a bottom-up project, it was for both me and PAX very interesting and fruitful to see what was known in the literature. Practical implications can be given, and especially as PAX got a lot of money for the project (over 2 million euro), it is

interesting to see what the outcomes are. As my thesis is not done yet, the outcomes of this will be shared later. I will present the outcomes of this research later with PAX, probably during the Inspiration Days in May 2017.

The organization

Another objective within the project was that I wanted to gain more knowledge about the organisation. This is fulfilled only to a certain degree, but not fully. I visited various group meetings, demonstrations with other departments of PAX, but as the workload of the project was already very high, it was sometimes difficult to really make time and plan meeting with colleagues from other departments. I worked most closely together with the Middle east department and the communications department, so these are the departments I learned most about.

6.3 SWOT analyses of the internship itself and the providing organisation

A SWOT analysis stands for analysing the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats of an organization. I will discuss all four of them here.

10 high and you have a lot of personal contact with the Syrian speakers, it is sometimes difficult or impossible to keep work life and private life separately. As the Syrian speakers had our private numbers, a lot of communication was done also in the private time or weekends. There are no fixed work hours, and the visits are located everywhere in The Netherlands (e.g. Groningen, Heerenveen, Amsterdam, Helmond, Culemborg, Vlissingen etc.), so flexibility is needed.

Opportunities: There are a lot of opportunities to work with people from different backgrounds and departments. Also, the project recently received 2 million euros to further develop the project, so many changes will be made in the near future. Furthermore, even in times when we did no promotion of the project, we were already fully booked. With more money to spent and with more Syrian speakers that will be part of the project in the near future, there are many opportunities to expand this project.

Threats: One of the threats is that as threat for this project is that the Syrian guest speakers are working on a voluntary basis, which makes it possible that speakers will find a fulltime paid job. Especially when speakers are done with naturalisation (‘inburgering’) or with the language tests, they may find a paid job and leave the project. Also, a threat is the emotional wellbeing of the speakers. It is (especially for some) hard to tell their personal stories over and over again. PAX pays attention to this (or tries to), but this is of course still a threat.

6.4 The internship as part of NOHA master

The internship at PAX is not only relevant for my personal wishes and ambitions, but is also closely linked to the study. As mentioned before, in Uppsala I followed courses related to Conflict, Religion and Peacebuilding. We learned a lot about how these three are interrelated. In practice, I learned this from our Syrian speakers, but also learned the importance for stability in countries. If peace works are effective, this could make humanitarian action superfluous. Efforts are often needed to keep peace and different groups talking with each other, in order to have just and stable peace. Although this internship/organisation is more leaning towards

‘development’ instead of ‘action/assistance’, the work is still strongly intercorrelated.

A lot of parts of the study came into practice. Not only what I learned in Uppsala about peace conflict a religion (which is highly likeable to the Syrian conflict), I also worked with knowledge from the courses in Groningen. As we learned about psychology in Humanitarian Action, I also experienced a lot of personal problems among the Syrian refugees (such as PTSD and fear). But also project management, monitoring and evaluating are things in which my NOHA background was useful, especially with regard to the research carried out on the effectiveness of the project. Also, the importance of presenting (both orally and written), have been stressed during the master, which has been of use within this internship. With the theoretical knowledge I gained from the master, and the practical experiences I gained within this project, both really complement each other.

6.5. Future directions