Website comes to rescue of migrants

In this May 1, 2016 photo, Cindy Spieker, Ahmed Haj Ali, Paul Spieker and Abdul Wahab sit around a table in Berlin. The group met through a website called “Let’s integrate!” that sets dates between refugees and locals in Berlin. (Photo: AP)

During the height of the migrant crisis in Europe last fall, Lasse Landt came to a startling realisation.

Thousands of migrants were pouring into Germany every day, but the 36-year-old start-up consultant from Berlin hadn’t met a single one of them.

“It was all over the media, every day on the talk shows you had people talking about the refugee crisis. I had never seen a refugee,” said Landt. “I just wanted to find out if it was real.”

His experience is typical for most Germans, and many have volunteered with charitable groups in part to meet the migrants they’re hearing so much about. But Landt went further - and the result is a kind of dating website for Germans and migrants, albeit without the romantic aspect.

Together with Khaled Alaswad, a 25-year-old Syrian he met at a computer coding class for migrants in Berlin, Landt started a project to help refugees and locals meet up. Called Let’s integrate! it allows users to pick a time and location and set up a “date.”

The idea is to set as low a hurdle as possible for the meeting. No preparation is needed - people just need to show up and hopefully have a good conversation. Or if the language barrier is too high, have a conversation with hand signals.

Alaswad said his friendship with Landt has helped him land on his feet in Germany.

“If the refugees never talk face to face with a local person, they will never know anything about the culture here,” he said. “There is just such a big difference between our culture and the German culture.”

Germany registered around 1.1 million irregular migrants in 2015, most of them refugees from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. But with the closure of the Balkans migration route from Greece to Germany, the number of migrants coming in has dropped dramatically this year. So attention has now shifted to integrating the refugees, who will most likely spend several years, if not their whole lives, in Germany.

The authorities are focusing on having migrants learn the language and get jobs. The German government has promised to introduce subsidised workplaces earmarked for refugees.

“In Germany, we have a very technocratic view of integration,” said Landt. “It is basically, you do a language class, you get a job and then you are integrated. But really, it is very much about social contact. Something you can achieve before you wait six months for your language class and another year before you are somewhat fluent.”

Let’s integrate! was launched May 1 and so far at least a dozen meetings have taken place. More Germans have signed up than migrants, so organisers are putting up posters in refugee homes to try to even out the numbers.

The service is free but only available in Berlin, though there are plans to expand it to other German cities soon, including those where migrants have received a less-than-enthusiastic reception. Fears about migrants have been stoked by far-right and nationalist groups, who have staged hundreds of rallies near refugee homes or planned shelters.