Welcome to Utrecht: How citizens and the Human Rights City work together to coordinate help for refugees

Change management

Both the website and Facebook page were developed independently by two groups of founders. In the case of the website, they knew each other through the sports club where their children were active and they also had in common that they worked in communications. Wim, Esther, Saskia, Dylan and Robbert wanted to use their expertise to positively influence public opinion on refugees.

In the case of the Facebook page, Katinka, Rebecca, Hellen and Frank were a group of old friends who got together to discuss how they could make refugees feel at home in Utrecht.

Both groups could see that many local people wanted to help the 500 refugees who were temporarily located in the De Jaarbeurs exhibition hall in Utrecht - but who did not know how they could help. In addition, they wanted to give the refugees arriving to Utrecht a more human image which would counterbalance media reports focussing mainly on numbers and highlighting critical voices who were not welcoming. The two groups quickly worked together and integrated the website and Facebook initiative. In line with the Dutch culture of collaboration, both groups harnessed their networks to obtain pro bono assistance from local copywriters and photographers.

The website is used as the channel where people can submit initiatives via a contact form (Governance International can confirm that there is quick and constructive feedback to proposals made through the form!). Moreover, the website offers clear information on what people can do and provides links to organisations and citizen initiatives they can join. Additionally, it offers reports on current and past activities, as well as interviews with volunteers and refugees. The Facebook page mainly activates volunteers. It shows calls for voluntary assistance for initiatives that are currently running and also provides short reports or links to stories on the website. In principal Welcome to Utrecht does not organise activities itself but rather coordinates  the volunteering activities of others in the city.

Welcome to Utrecht works closely with the municipality of Utrecht. Through the contact form, incoming inquiries and offers are screened by the volunteers and answered initially. If an initiative is considered to be beneficial, it is sent to the municipality, which promotes it in the shelter. Welcome to Utrecht and the municipality regularly consult on specific questions and offers. They exchange knowledge and experiences in order to improve the streamlining of the support offered. The municipality highlights the Welcome to Utrecht website and Facebook page as the portal for aid to refugees in the city. Welcome to Utrecht and the municipality also jointly staff information desks about voluntary support opportunity during information evenings which are run for citizens living in the surroundings of the shelters.

Over the past months, Welcome to Utrecht supported a large number of activities by matching initiatives, volunteers and refugees with each other – something that social media are especially effective in doing. For example, a "Come and Eat” event has been organised a number of times. The last was on 25 October 2015, when nearly 400 refugees were hosted by Utrecht citizens who invited them home for dinner and to socialize in their family environment. Also, many volunteers have been recruited to distribute clothing to refugees at a local mosque. And in addition there have been many other activities such as football tournaments, games afternoons, language lessons,  a visit to a school, learning to ride a bike, concert visits and music workshops. Refugees have taken full advantage of these activities.

Outcomes

With the support of Welcome to Utrecht, it is possible to offer a continuous range of activities for refugees. The manager of the Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers in the Netherlands has indicated that this helps to reduce tensions among refugees who still are in a frustrating, stressful situation. And the encounters between refuges and citizens during all these activities have helped to increase the support for refugees within the wider society. On the Facebook page several refugees have posted thank you messages, mostly by means of a picture or a single word. The first batch of refugees have also expressed their appreciation through a letter to the mayor in which they wrote: "Our stay in your town was brief but heart-warming. Knowing that we can count on help from our fellow men gives us a sense of safety and trust in life and humanity. You can imagine that we find it hard to feel trust in our world today. Therefore, what you give us is priceless. And therefore our gratitude is great.” A volunteer who had two refugees as her guests for dinner recounts her experience: “ It helps that we have met such fine people as Aram and Kaleed, especially because the public debate about refugees is all about ‘numbers’, 'quotas' and 'sober shelter’. You quickly lose sight of the human side. The Council has thanked Welcome to Utrecht and all volunteers for their support and a proud mayor Van Zanen said: “Heartwarming, all those volunteers, so impressive.”

Performance indicators

• 500 refugees were welcomed since early September 2015 in the emergency shelter. Refugees are staying there from a few days to several weeks. The shelter closed on 7 November. On 20 November another emergency shelter opened, again for 500 people. It will remain in use until 1 May 2016.
• From this shelter the refugees go to another centre in the Netherlands to continue their procedures for admission.
• Approximately 20 people are directly involved in the Facebook page and website, including communications professionals, (web)designers, copywriters and photographers.
• More than 100 initiatives have been put forward and hundreds of volunteers have been matched with refugees who needed specific kinds of help.
• Welcome to Utrecht (website and Facebook) is also being used as a platform for activities around the new emergency shelter, where volunteer coordinators for several issues (such as language, food, music, creative, meetings and sports) match and combine them into a weekly offering of recurring and non-recurring activities.

Costs and savings

The website and Facebook page  are completely set up and managed by volunteers. Because part of the group consists of communication professionals, it was possible to develop everything for free. Savings are indirect. Thanks to the organisation of the wide range of activities, the refugee reception is of better quality than would otherwise be possible. This prevents, or at least reduces, reduces the possible occurrence of tensions in society and among the refugees themselves, and these impacts eventually have an impact in reducing the costs of public services. 

Lessons to be learned

1. Do not institutionalise too much how volunteers contribute to the reception of refugees but leave room for spontaneity and enthusiasm.
2. Local government also has an important role in support voluntary initiatives by using its authority: Generating publicity in the media; and facilitating access to official bodies and other organizations. In all these ways, it can provide authority to back up citizen initiatives, without compromising the independence of those citizens.
3. An important lesson for Welcome to Utrecht was its focus. It succeeded by being careful not to take up polemical positions, it remained politically neutral and it knew what its core purpose was and what it should remain.