This same year, on February 24, what the president of Russia describes as “special operation”, a euphemism to justify that he was going to invade a neighboring country.
The invasion of Ukraine, has brought back to our doors a phenomenon that occurs when there is an armed conflict, and that is that people cannot live in their homes and first find themselves displaced in their own country, and then, in a desperate manner, they leave it. to find refuge in another, usually nearby.
This new war, unfortunately more common than we would all like, has brought back, constantly and in a short time, more than 5 million people to the EU countries, and whose arrival has posed a great social challenge.
We know a lot about how they arrive and also how many there are, but we know little about their stay and reception in our countries, a process that is often cumbersome and lasts many months.
During this time, refugees and asylum seekers remain in centers where sometimes more than 150 people from very diverse countries, ethnicities, and problems live together, going through a series of phases where they have access to different reception services.
These centers are some of them managed by the State, but for the most part they are managed by large social organizations subcontracted for this purpose to assist them in their reception and development of positive inclusion in our society.
In these resources, these people are cared for by a multidisciplinary team with different profiles such as social workers, social inclusion technicians, psychologists, administration staff, lawyers, janitor, cleaning and reception staff at the shelters, as well as a translation team. and interpretation.
However, as we see in this line of professions, most centers do not have an intercultural mediation service that complements this offer, still denoting a little culture of peaceful conflict resolution in some of these large organizations where, therefore, no demand yet this profile for your entities.
As we see, some of these organizations that manage the centers where this complex diversity lives, still do not see how intercultural mediation can provide that value added of tranquility, conflict resolution and support, suitable to help improve, not only the climate of these centers, but also the social itineraries of these people in our country.
This deficit, in addition to a clear lack, seems a great opportunity for all of us who believe that mediation provides a great tool to society, since its development in this field, where unfortunately it will have so much importance in coming years, is still halfway done.
This is the current reality of the intercultural mediation in refugee centers, a reality that should be more widespread, and where the State should even promote it as it already does in other legal, civil and commercial services in our society.
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