Should refugees have to do community service work? No, says the Gau-Algesheim community in Rhineland-Palatinate. She relies on voluntariness – and it works.
Bernd Daum stands in an empty refugee accommodation in the Gau-Algesheim municipality and gestures. “Ghassan, you can start painting here,” he says, pointing to a stained white wall. “The others then start taping there, and then just room by room, okay?”
Daum works at the social welfare office. The ten women and men who listen to him carefully are refugees. They come from Syria, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Ukraine. The asylum seekers spread out into different rooms and begin to tape up, paint and clean. It is not the first time that the municipality has involved refugees in charitable work – on a voluntary basis.
Variety for learning
39-year-old Ghassan Hussein is enthusiastic about the matter. He came to Germany from Syria fourteen months ago. He has already worked as a craftsman in his home country. However, he cannot produce any certificates, diplomas or degrees. At the moment he is mainly learning German – he recently passed the B1 language test. This confirmed that he speaks independently and confidently and can follow conversations well.
But Hussein wants more. In order to improve his chances on the job market, he is now working towards the next higher language level: B2. For him, the voluntary work assignments are a welcome change from learning. The Syrian says that after all, he didn’t come to Germany to sit around.
The request comes via WhatsApp: Refugees who want to help voluntarily usually contact us very quickly.
A positive side effect: Hussein met Mohamad Khan during one of his previous work assignments and became friends with him. The IT specialist from Pakistan lives in another refugee accommodation in Gau-Algesheim. He also gets in touch regularly when there is something to do in the community.
The 28-year-old also wants to give something back to Germany: “Germany gives us a lot of things – housing and social services. It’s our responsibility, we have to help back.” For him, working together is also an opportunity to exchange ideas with other refugees, discuss concerns and needs, and get advice.
Fast and unbureaucratic
Gau-Algesheim has been regularly bringing in asylum seekers to do lighter work for two years. Bernd Daum from the Gau-Algesheim social welfare office has set up a WhatsApp group for this purpose. It currently has around 50 members. A total of 250 refugees live in the Rhine-Hesse community who do not yet have a regular job.
If there is something to do, Daum writes, for example: “Hi everyone, tomorrow I would need around eight people who can work at 8 a.m. It is urgent, who can?” The answers usually come promptly: “I’m coming,” “I have time,” “My mother is coming.”
Helped out for a bit
The whole thing is self-perpetuating on a voluntary basis, says the mayor of the Gau-Algesheim municipality, Benno Neuhaus. The community always receives a lot of response to its calls very quickly, said the CDU politician.
The number of volunteers often even exceeds the number of workers required. And this despite the fact that there is only one type of pocket money for the missions. The mayor doesn’t want to say exactly how high that is. The tasks for which asylum seekers are called upon are diverse.
For Mayor Benno Neuhaus (CDU), the work on a voluntary basis is a no-brainer.
Neuhaus describes how the refugees helped the community out of an emergency last summer: “We had a major construction project at a primary school during the summer holidays, and the work was completed on the Friday before the start of the new school year.” Everything still looked like a construction site. “Twenty people came forward immediately and said: Sure, we’ll come, we’ll do it. And on Monday the schoolyard was in perfect condition.”
Reticent municipalities?
The discussion about whether refugees should be required to do community service is not new. It recently picked up speed again after the district administrator of the Saale-Orla district in eastern Thuringia, Christian Herrgott, announced that he wanted to make refugees work four hours a day – for 80 cents an hour. Those who don’t want to do so face financial consequences.
The debate about the pros and cons of compulsory work was so heated that it was almost lost on the fact that the Asylum Seekers’ Benefits Act has provided for this option for decades. A fact that the CEO of the Federal Employment Agency, Andrea Nahles, points out, among others.
The former SPD top politician says that it has been legally possible for refugees to work in accommodation for years, but that municipalities have been rather reluctant to use it. The Asylum Application Benefits Act also states that refugees generally earn 80 cents per hour for community service work.
Stephan Wefelscheid from the Free Voters in Rhineland-Palatinate is convinced that many municipalities do not know that they can require asylum seekers to do community service. He thinks this is a missed opportunity – on the one hand for the municipalities. After all, they often received complaints about garbage lying around or the paint on park benches being chipped.
Wefelscheid is certain that workers from abroad could also remedy these problems without a long training period. On the other hand, he also believes that the refugees could benefit because it gives them a good feeling to return the favor to the people who care for them through charitable work.
Wefelscheid, who is also a city councilor in Koblenz, is demanding that the Rhineland-Palatinate state government provide municipalities with a catalog of job opportunities for refugees. The Saxon Ministry of the Interior published corresponding guidelines for districts and municipalities in 2015, including a list of jobs such as pulling weeds, clearing leaves, and keeping cycling and hiking trails clean.
“Racist point of view”
Annika Kristeit from the Rhineland-Palatinate Refugee Council has a problem with mandatory charitable work. “These are jobs that a lot of Germans who live here don’t want to do and that foreigners should now please take on,” she says. “And that’s a racist way of looking at it. That the people who come here should now do the things we don’t want to do.”
Kristeit is not fundamentally opposed to charitable work. However, it is important for them that refugees can decide to do this voluntarily. This is a way to meet each other on equal terms.
Compulsory work requires too much additional effort
In Gau-Algesheim, too, no one wants to force refugees to do community service – but for different reasons. According to association mayor Benno Neuhaus, this would mean additional organizational and personnel costs for the community that could not be met.
However, Neuhaus wants to stick to the voluntary work assignments. Not least because these could also lead to better coexistence between refugees and locals. And ultimately that’s what everyone cares about.