Is the communication between migrants with non-normative abilities and Swedish authorities deficient?
At the roundtable dialogue number two with representatives for the Social Services Administration, City of Stockholm, Chavia Ali, field worker within the DRW project described the communication during meetings between newcomers with non-normative abilities and the Swedish authorities.
Chavia is DRW’s Arabic speaking field worker and have, therefore, carried out many interviews with newcomers with non-normative abilities within the scope of DRW’s case studies. She described many of the problems newcomers with non-normative abilities struggle with during the initial period in Sweden.
Chavia described, for example, that during her interviews as a field worker she has met individuals that after ten years in Sweden still do not feel integrated. She also means that many of the informants in the DRW case study did not know their rights, or did not know how to access them. After that, Chavia explained that a given reason for this is the lack of accessible information in Arabic, or that the available information is in an inaccessible format.
We, in the project Disabled Refugees Welcome, know that inaccessible information and formats of information are some of the primary reasons for the severe deficiencies in the reception of newcomers with non-normative abilities. Therefore, we have found various material available in Swedish and translated it to, for example, Arabic. Among the material we have translated is ” LSS på lättläst” [LSS in easy-to-read-Swedish] and the Social Service Administration’s brochure ”Stockholm Stöd och Service till personer med funktionsnedsättning” [Stockholm, support and service for disabled people].
During May, DRW will launch our first report with interviews where the common denominator is the Arabic language. We look forward to this!