Country Information Seminar
  

• Would you like to know more about the history, culture, or conflict in the country of origin of refugees?

• Would you like to see pictures, films or know more about the living conditions in the refugee camps where the refugees where staying before they came to Norway?

• Would you like to improve your understanding of cultural values, behaviour and communication style of the refugees?

• Would you like to hear from the newcomers themselves how they have experienced their new life in Norway so far?

CO programme staff has the knowledge and experience on the above mentioned topics and we are happy to share this information with you. Together with you we can jointly organize a meeting or a seminar tailored to your municipality’s interests and needs.

What is a country information seminar?
If this is first time that you are inviting IOM to your municipality to talk about the refugees, the agenda could include e.g. the following topics:

• A brief presentation of IOM
• Information on what refugees learned during their CO classes about Norway before they arrived to your municipality
• Information on refugees’ country of origin + the transit country including:
  - Geography-geopolitical setting/demography
  - Conflict situation
  - Ethnic groups
  - Security situation
  - Cultural differences

Duration of the seminar
The length of the seminar can be tailored to your interest and needs. Usually it takes about 5-6 hours to go through the above agenda. This would include also the lunch and coffee breaks.

Language of the seminars: Norwegian

Participants
People to be invited to the seminar could include; refugee worker of the municipality, introduction programme teachers, health sector personnel, teachers, kindergarten teachers, representatives of churches, police, social office, employment office, potential employers, NGO’s, representative of the UDI and IMDi’s regional offices, neighbours of refugees, or any other interested person in your municipality.

The ideal number of participants would be around 20-30 in order to encourage active participation and discussion by participants, but we have also had as many as 100 participants in some of our seminars. You can also organize the meeting jointly with some nearby municipality.

Costs / Responsibilities
IOM will take care of the content and presentations of the day. We will also cover all the costs relating to the travel of our staff members to your municipality. Inviting municipality will be responsible for providing a venue and informing/ inviting the prospective participants.

Countries
Countries on which IOM can offer information seminars on include: Myanmar (Burma), Congo and Burundi. Upon request IOM can also provide information on other refugee groups, e.g. Liberia, Indonesia (Aceh), Afghanistan, Somalia, Iran, and Sudan.

Follow-up Country Information Seminars
Has your municipality already hosted one country information seminar? There is no limit for how many times you can invite IOM to your municipality.

Perhaps not all interested persons had a chance to participate in the first one? Would you like to have another seminar which would focus on certain specific topics or different refugee groups? Give us a call or send us an email and we can plan together the content of another seminar?

More information
For more information please contact:

IOM Oslo
Tel. 23 10 53 40 or 23 10 53 32
Email: osloco@iom.int