Inburgering (Citizenship) Lessons

After a failed attempt last Tuesday, I was thrilled to receive an email from the inburgering lessons' teacher ‘Fleur’ on Monday night letting me know that I was welcomed to join the lessons the following day. So at 9 o'clock in the morning I biked through the ice and snow to the neighbourhood centre to have my first class. As mentioned in my last blog these classes include Dutch language instruction and learning about Dutch history and current affairs. They also involve learning more practical information that can help individuals get along in every day life (for example, what to do/say when visiting the apotheek which is our version of the shoppers drug mart), in addition to providing a safe space for practicing this knowledge. These particular classes used to be housed in the Moroccan mosque just across from the hofbogen lijn (from what I understood however, I'll have to double check this point) however due to an opening in the neighbourhood centre, the classes were moved to its present location a couple of months ago. Since this time Fleur has been busy giving lessons at the centre, three days a week, to women who are on a 3, 6, 12 or 18 month plan to complete their inburgering certifications.

The inburgering process in the Netherlands was developed to help immigrants integrate socially into their host society in addition to allowing other members of Dutch society to recognise them as full citizens. The end goal of inburgering courses is to have immigrants fully-participating in Dutch society. Although this process is chiefly aimed at new immigrants, not all of the women at my inburgering class were in fact “new”. As a matter of fact, the majority were what the Dutch call Oudkomers or ‘old comers’. This label does not refer to their age but to the amount of time that they've lived in the Netherlands. There were even a couple of women who had lived in the Netherlands for longer than they had lived in their native countries however, they had been asked by the government to complete these courses. In order to take these courses (and have them paid for by the government) one must receive an invitation from the government. However, maybe invitation is the wrong word maybe since one only has a certain amount of time to complete these courses if they wish to receive permanent status. Oudkomers are those individuals who came to the Netherlands before these inburgering courses were in place (before 2007) and have been asked in retrospect, to complete these courses. For more details concerning who and under what conditions individuals must take these courses please follow this link.

The course itself is quite interesting and in my opinion, extremely practical and helpful. Although I continue with my Dutch taal curses (language instruction) every Monday night I found myself learning a lot in just one session. The example of the apotheek that I used above was something that we covered in addition to discussing the latest news stories from the weekend (Sven winning the gold in Vancouver! And the tragic train crash in Belgium). Fleur also went over the different political parties that are involved in the upcoming March 3rd municipal election. This was especially topical since the leaders of the parties had been on television the night before having a debate over current events and issues in the Netherlands. During the debate Geert Wilders had claimed something to the effect that Moroccans and Muslims were the greatest problem facing the Netherlands because they were refusing to integrate. I wonder if being in my Tuesday morning class would change his mind…I’d like to think so.

Overall, I'm pleased that this activity is very informative toward my research as well as being a really great way to supplement to my other learning!