Immigrants to be instructed on Maltese culture

Illegal immigrants in detention centres are to be offered lectures on Malta's core values, history and traditions from January in a bid to integrate them and tackle boredom.

Social and care workers will soon be dispatched to the closed centres as Malta taps a €310,000 (Lm135,000) grant, financed mainly by the EU.

"We need to eliminate the culture shock. Integration is a two-way process... we have two societies which don't know enough about each other," Social Policy Ministry Policy Coordinator Alex Tortell told The Sunday Times.

The overdue plan is to run the closed camps like open centres in line with international obligations.

The initiative is spawned by the European Commission, which recently unveiled plans to assist Malta, Italy, Greece, Sweden and Spain to cope with reception challenges of illegal maritime immigration.

Malta's pilot project will focus on upgrading the facilities in reception centres through the co-ordination of existing services and the provision of social welfare services, skills training and communal activities. The EU will finance 70 per cent of the costs.

The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) and the COA, a Dutch asylum-seeking agency, will be focusing on the culture orientation aspect. In a classroom setting, complete with audio-visual facilities, illegal immigrants will be taught languages, life skills, the Maltese way of life, the island's history, and informed about issues of equality and democracy. Officials from the Employment and Training Corporation will also be on hand to assist immigrants with developing work skills, such as drawing up a CV.

For those on the integration track, it will serve as preparation for their future even though the training will be given to all detainees, Mr Tortell said. Attendance is not compulsory, but the take-up is expected to be strong.

He admitted that the existing system - of putting immigrants inside camps for weeks on end with little to do - was having an adverse effect and leading to disorientation.

"This new system will address the issue of boredom and passivity... and where vulnerable people are concerned it would tap potential mental health risks. Let's not forget that these people have already gone through a trauma..."

He said local authorities were still learning how to operate a reception network in a country with limited accomodation space. But with the help of international contacts, the more ingrained challenges may now be tackled.

"Our ways of communicating is different. For example, an African person will look at the ground to show you respect; we don't. We also need to look at their customs and beliefs. Even soldiers will be learning from this process. Once we respect each other's traditions and competencies we will move on. It's in everybody's interest."

Mr Tortell said it was the Government's intention to create space for the NGOs to operate more freely inside the detention centres, once the infrastructure is set up.

Maria Pisani from IOM added that the cultural orientation sessions will be tailor made to the local context:

"Providing cultural orientation helps to reduce migrant's anxiety by painting a more realistic picture of what awaits them in Malta... We adopt a very 'hands-on' approach, using tools such as role plays, debate and other activities: participants are encouraged to actively take part in the sessions."

The subjects chosen in Malta are clearly more conservative than a similar project undertaken in the Netherlands last year when immigrants were shown a video of two men kissing in a park and a topless woman bather.

The reactions of applicants - including Muslims - were then examined to see whether they are able to accept the country's liberal attitudes.