The Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS) and the Ministry of the Interior have completed a project for the integration of persons under international protection who have been relocated from Turkey, and they presented the project's closing publication in Karlovac on Tuesday.
The publication was presented at the city’s IV-ER Kontex company, where two Syrians included in the project work.
Ivica Cvitkovic, owner of the IV-ER – Kontex factory, which produces firehoses, said that five Syrians included in the project had undergone a six-month retraining course in cooperation with the local employment office, and that three went elsewhere after training while two remained in the factory and that he was satisfied with them.
The Ministry of the Interior state secretary for immigration, citizenship and administrative affairs, Zarko Katic, expressed confidence that ten refugee families covered by the project had been successfully integrated.
A total of 250 refugees arrived from Turkey in Croatia as part of the project, in the meantime some families got children here and those children are not refugees but refugees’ descendants born in an EU country, said Katic.
He noted that in the past 14 years Croatia had granted 936 asylum requests for persons who had been persecuted in their countries of origin or had come from war-torn or conflict-stricken regions.
A total of 16,000 asylum applications had been submitted but about 70% of the asylum seekers left Croatia during the asylum procedure because Croatia was not their target country, however, there have been examples of good integration in Zagreb and Zadar as well as now in Karlovac, said Katic.
In Zagreb, asylum-seekers have found employment as carers for elderly and disabled persons, in Zadar they have found employment in the construction sector and in Karlovac they have found employment in two local companies.
Underlining the importance of employment, Katic said, “We want to show other towns and municipalities in Croatia that giving refugee families both employment and a pleasant life is possible.”
He added that in the next 12 months new asylum laws should be adopted after the European Commission put forward a set of related bills to be discussed by the European Council and the European Parliament.
The JRS director for Southeast Europe, Stanko Perica, thanked the Karlovac mayor and the IV-ER Kontex company as well as JRS members for making it possible for several Syrian refugee families to live happily in Karlovac.
He noted that JRS operated in 56 countries and was a sort of avant-garde in integration policies and integration to the benefit of the whole society.
Perica noted that JRS had competent and trained staff to prevent assimilation on the path to integration.
“We are copying positive practices from other countries and guidelines that are yielding results,” said Perica.
The two Syrians working in IV-ER Kontex, Said and Naser, said that they were happy with their jobs and that they had been accepted well in Karlovac.