In 2016, Olga, a young refugee fleeing hostilities between Armenia and Azerbaijan, came to Vienna, Austria, to seek asylum. She did not know a word of German, and until Olga’s asylum application was accepted by the Austrian government, she was stuck in limbo.
Valerie Mühlenburg, the founder of an Austrian refugee organization called The Connection, explained Olga’s predicament to The Politic. “The asylum process,” Mühlenburg said, “can take a long time in Austria. It can take years. During those years, you’re not allowed to work, and you’re not allowed to take German courses.” Asylum seekers cannot attend programs funded by the state while waiting for their stays in Austria to be approved. However, The Connection is privately funded, which meant that the organization could accept Olga into its language classes. Despite the hurdles, Olga learned German and now works as a German teacher at The Connection, leading a language course for Ukrainian mothers and children who have just arrived at Austria’s borders.
The Connection is a small, intimate refugee integration program in Vienna led by a team of five women. Mühlenburg founded the program in 2011 when she returned to Vienna, her hometown, after working on youth initiatives in Chile and Eastern Europe. She was unable to find “a project that was satisfying,” she said, “so I started my own.” The Connection began as a small coffee shop where refugees could cultivate job experience and take German lessons on the side. During the 2015 European migrant crisis, also known as the Syrian refugee crisis, 1.3 million migrants came to Europe to seek asylum. During this crisis, Austria received an influx of refugees, and The Connection accepted many people to the program, but the coffee shop and courses were soon overrun. To meet the needs of young adult refugees, The Connection converted into a make-shift school with three main pillars: teaching German, providing structure and support, and promoting personal and social skills. The goal is to “accompany [displaced people] in [their] integration, the acquisition of school and social skills, and the planning of [their] future in Austria,” The Connection’s website says. “Whatever situation [they] come from, we offer the right support.”
The 2022 crisis in Ukraine has presented new challenges for The Connection, which must respond to a new refugee demographic. Previously, The Connection worked with displaced people who were sixteen and older, but more than 90 percent of the 4.5 million Ukrainian refugees are women and children. The organization has had to adapt its courses to suit younger participants, for whom daily life has been disrupted. The Connection uses a pre-existing German course called LieLa to teach German to Ukrainian children. This course teaches language through interactivity and games rather than writing, creating an atmosphere of play as the children learn. On the second day of the LieLa program, Mühlenburg got feedback from a teacher who told her that “a mother came up to her and said she’s so happy and grateful because after the first class it was the first time her son didn’t wake up crying because of nightmares.”
Austria, located in the southern part of Central Europe, is 340 miles from Ukraine’s border. Although the two countries do not directly adjoin each other, approximately 117,000 Ukrainian refugees have entered Austria since the Russian invasion began. Vindoboa: Vienna International News, estimates that only 30 percent of those refugees are likely to stay. The number of refugees in Austria is dwarfed by the influx into countries directly bordering Ukraine. Poland, which shares a 330-mile-long border with Ukraine, has borne the brunt of the current refugee crisis with over 2.7 million refugees in the country as of April 14, 2022. An additional 726,000 and 447,000 displaced people have crossed borders into Romania and Hungary respectively. With an influx of refugees entering European countries, the European Union has invoked the Temporary Protection Directive, giving Ukrainians the right to live, work, and receive benefits in 26 of its 27 members. The European response to refugees has been welcoming, but past refugee crises in Europe follow a pattern of being initially welcoming then later anti-immigrant. During the Syrian refugee crisis, European attempts to welcome refugees ran up against growing anti-immigrant sentiment. For instance, Germany has seen an increase in support of their right-wing party, Alternative for Germany, which opposes open immigration policy and Germany’s membership in the E.U. Learning from past conflicts like the Syrian refugee crisis in 2015, E.U. countries like Austria have shaped programs for future refugee crises to prepare for a mass influx of people.
Within Austria and the E.U., organizations such as the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees have improved refugee reception systems. In place of physical aid packages, refugees receive a ‘registration card,’ like a debit card, from the UNHCR upon arrival, so that they can withdraw cash and buy supplies and food. This way, refugees are able to buy foods that they like and supplies that they do not have with them. Meanwhile, hotels offer boarding and lodging for single mothers and their children. The Austrian public is also assisting government efforts. For example, a citizen who coordinated refugee accommodation in 2015 developed an app to provide individual rooms or housing for Ukrainian families. Creating private spaces for refugees, allows them to personalize their rooms and cook their own meals, giving them a sense of normalcy and belonging. This is not possible to provide in large halls filled with cots for hundreds of people.
Udo Janz, a former director of the UNHCR’s New York office who now lives in Vienna, said, “When you see solidarity from the government, private sector, public sector, and individuals, it’s fantastic. It’s the ideal situation. We can only hope the hospitality lasts.” The Austrian government has reacted quickly to the expected wave of Ukrainian refugees. In 2015, Austria was unprepared for the migrant crisis, lacking resources and amenities. In February, in only a matter of days, the government cleared out soccer stadiums to become reception centers, and policies almost immediately passed to grant visas to Ukrainians. In 2022, E.U. member states including Austria granted all Ukrainian refugees asylum for up to three years, temporarily removing this barrier for Ukrainians. The government has also announced that every Ukrainian can use the Austrian railway systems for free –– all they have to do is show their passport. Additionally, Ukrainian children have been given access to the Austrian public school system so that they can return to a routine and a sense of normalcy.
Smaller programs like The Connection focus on introducing structure into the lives of refugees, providing individual attention to displaced people who often arrive in masses. At The Connection, class sizes range from 12 to 16 students. In a semester, a total of 90 refugees attend the program. The people who attend classes come from a variety of backgrounds and a range of education. One German course may consist of refugees with master’s degrees who sit beside refugees who have never been in a classroom before. Small class sizes and programs are difficult to fund when masses of people are arriving, but the approach is effective and sets The Connection apart from other refugee integration programs.
One benefit of this individual attention is its positive influence on the mental health of displaced people. Udo Janz, the former UNHCR employee, is married to Elisabeth Janz Mayer-Rieckh, a somatic experience trauma therapist at Hemayat, a care center for torture and war survivors in Vienna. Janz Mayer-Rieckh says that refugees must be “seen as individual persons in the huge masses of people” The Connection’s personalized approach puts this philosophy into practice. “The more we design things in a way that gives people human dignity,” Janz Mayer-Rieckh explained, “It gives people the feeling that they are seen, that they are being recognized for what they have gone through, that they are given respect.”
History shows that the warm welcome from host countries can be hard to maintain. Since 2015, countries in E.U. have seen efforts to accept refugees be “hijacked by renewed nationalistic sentiments or right-wing political xenophobic statements,” Udo Janz explained.
Complex dynamics emerge in countries such as Austria where the largest ethnic group, Austrians, comprises 80.8% of the population. Most refugees from 2015 were non-white and stood out among a majority white population. After the influx of Syrian refugees in 2015, Austria’s tally of hate crimes increased from 186 in 2014 to 396 in 2015 and 425 in 2016. In contrast, the public support for Ukrainians is “on a much greater scale than there used to be in 2015,” said Udo Janz. Although some argue that Austrian support is greater because Ukraine has positively contributed to the Western European economies for years, it is difficult to ignore that race, religion, and culture are significant differences between the refugee crisis in 2015 and the one in 2022.
The Connection helps create links across these lines of difference. Janz Mayer-Rieckh said her experience working with refugees in the past has shown her that “we often come up with a clear idea in our heads and make presumptions of what it must be like to be a refugee. We forget to start from the beginning and see this person’s individual situation. Their needs and strengths. We cannot forget that there will be people coming that can bring a lot to our communities.” Through The Connection, refugees have a chance not only to bond with Austrians but also to spend time with refugees from other countries and cultures. Mühlenburg said that in addition to Ukraine and Syria, her organization brings together students from countries including Iraq, Somalia, and Nigeria.
Mühlenburg worked with one refugee from Afghanistan, who attended The Connection when he was 17. The teenager took courses in German, which he hoped would help him become a mechanic. Through the program, he was able to learn German, complete his degree, and finally become a mechanic. Now, Mühlenburg invites him back to the Connection to inspire other young adults with his story.