
Refugees Welcome - rolux
http://www.refugees-welcome.net
======
theworstshill
80% of these refugees should be accepted by the US, after all, if you give
weaponry to various "free" syrian armies to cause havoc in the region, you
should take responsibility to take care of the humanitarian disaster that
results. The other 20% - UK, France and Germany, whoever dumped weapons on
that region. Unpopular as it is - the middle east was doing much better under
strong dictators. They had civilization going for thousands of years, and an
attempt to change the regional order from the outside was a fatal mistake. Do
the right thing and accept them, also don't forget build a couple of mosques
near your house. At least in theory.

~~~
jahewson
Let's at least mention the real culprits: Russia and Iran.

~~~
powertower
Culprits of what?

Russia and Iran are not trying to destabilize and take over the country - by
forming, arming, and financing terrorist groups from within and from outside.

They did not bring this conflict to Syria, nor the resulting destruction.

~~~
davidw
One of the reasons I hate these kinds of discussions is that they are so
boring and simplistic. The notion that "it's all the US' fault!" seems to
always rear its head.

I'm not a fan of a lot of US foreign policy, but people like Assad and Putin
are 'not very nice people' to put it mildly, and have done more than their
fair share to cause problems in Syria.

Russia has a direct interest in Syria, BTW:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_naval_facility_in_Tart...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_naval_facility_in_Tartus)

~~~
powertower
If you are curious about what the other side sees this as, this is a decent
write-up - [http://www.globalresearch.ca/why-syrians-support-bashar-
al-a...](http://www.globalresearch.ca/why-syrians-support-bashar-al-
assad/5405208)

~~~
hrez
Let me just quote
[http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Globalresearch.ca](http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Globalresearch.ca)
"While many of Globalresearch's articles discuss legitimate humanitarian or
environmental concerns, the site has a strong undercurrent of reality warping
throughout its pages, especially in relation to taking its news from sources
such as Russia Today RT[2] and Press TV.[3] Its view of science, the economy
and geopolitics seems to be broadly conspiracist. Whenever someone makes a
remarkable claim and cites Globalresearch, they are almost certainly wrong."

------
sschueller
I would like to see the US step up its process to accept refugees.

Currently it takes 18 to 24 months for refuges to be able to get on a plane
the US. The US has agreed to accept up to 70k refugees yet at this rate it
will take for ever while Germany has hundreds of new refuges per day.

[1] [http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/11/us-accept-
thous...](http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/11/us-accept-thousands-
syrian-refugees)

~~~
cylinder
70k per year _is_ hundreds per day. And then there's all the asylum seekers on
top of that as well as the massive undocumented migrations across the southern
border.

If Germany were an island it would do the same kind of processing.

There's nothing wrong with examining a person for a year before letting them
settle in your country. The system has worked well thus far, why bust it up?

~~~
jacobush
Actually it is quite bad for families to get their lives halted for such a
long time. Problem is, they are not examined for a year. They are in queue for
a year and then examined a week or something.

~~~
cylinder
Background investigations are done as well.

Again, I see no problem with it. I thought they were escaping a dangerous
situation? It seems they are now in a safe third country, it's not a big deal
they have to wait a year. I have many relatives who came to the US this way.

~~~
mrdodge
How do you do a background investigation on someone from Syria?

~~~
icebraining
Well, you can check with your foreign intelligence agencies to see if the
person is suspected of any malicious behaviour or connections, and if the
person has acquaintances already in the US, you can ask them questions.

------
jbssm
Sincerely. I'm European, I'm from Euro zone. I walk in the streets in my
country's capital at night and a see dozens of homeless hungry people just by
walking a couple of Km.

I just can't put my head around on why we should help the refugees before we
help our own people. It just doesn't make any sense to me. We are giving
millions to find houses for these refugees/migrants but we let our own live
and die on the streets...

~~~
mc32
Allowing refugees is a feel good band aid. Yes it does directly benefit those
who gain asylum but it does nothing to help the majority left behind.

The real solution is to make positive changes in their homelands, bg force if
necessary. This dilly dallying helps no one except radicals bent on violence
and the corrupt regimes and Russia's meddling. Europe needs to do something.
Sometimes you do need violence to make things better, world war two has left a
deep scar on Europe which has made it overly cautious and allergic to
necessarily addressing unjust violence.

~~~
dba7dba
And the refugees would MUCH MUCH prefer to be in their own homeland with their
family/friends/culture.

~~~
dba7dba
Why am I downvoted? They were forced out from their home due to the conflicts.
They are not out on a vacation trip.

~~~
jbssm
Well, the term refugees is being used too much in this question. There are
many refugees, but there are also many economic migrants amongst them.

Receiving the war refugees is certainly different from receiving the economic
migrants and we shouldn't mix both things as we are doing lately.

~~~
andreasklinger
economic migrants dont explain the spike we currently see

------
explorigin
This seems potentially dangerous to me. As someone with experience dealing
with refugees, they often go through untold horrors in their journey. They
often need counselling, friendship, purpose (often in the form of employment).
It's good that they have this "refugee buddy" concept but it's not clear to me
from their website if there is adequate support for the volunteer if they have
to deal with these needs.

Each volunteer should consider carefully if they are able to meet these needs
and fill these roles (triply so if you have children).

If everything works out, this could be very rewarding for everyone. If not, it
could be catastrophic.

------
candl
It "amazes" me why these "refugees" flock to Germany or Great Britain and not
to their very wealthy brethren in countries such as Kuwaii, Egypt, Qatar,
Saudi Arabia, Arab Emirates, etc... Same culture, same religion and they are
much closer!

It also amazes me why the EU leaders insist for other European countries to
accept these "refugees" when the majority of EU countries is not responsible
for this situation at all.

Luckily there are some leaders out there that are not afraid of this stupid
political correctness and they build fences on their borders because they know
what this might lead to.

~~~
ashleyp
Why cares who's responsible? They're humans. Arn't we all responsible for all
humans on the planet?

~~~
ryanlol
Why would I be responsible for people I don't even know? If I help somebody
it's out of kindness, not responsibility.

~~~
ashleyp
Thankyou. That's my point. Who cares? We can still help them out of kindness
and unconditionally, not expecting anything back.

~~~
Kalium
There are limits, practical as well as rhetorical. Not everyone wants to be
lectured about how unconditional kindness is their duty and responsibility.
Not everyone wants to be told that this kindness needs to come at significant
expense at a time when (insert fiscal problems here, such as Greece or the UK)
are already occurring.

~~~
ashleyp
I'm aware, i'm from the uk. No lecture. I wasnt telling anyone what to do.

------
an4rchy
Awesome idea! It would be great if airbnb did something like this... They
already have the infrastructure in place, they could support NGOs etc and
probably get a tax break!

~~~
eadz
They have done something similar. In Australia they partnered with a local
government to provide accommodation in an emergency.

Press release: [https://www.airbnb.co.uk/press/news/airbnb-partners-with-
vic...](https://www.airbnb.co.uk/press/news/airbnb-partners-with-victorian-
government-to-prepare-for-emergencies)

But seeing AirBnB do something for refugees would be great.

------
kcbanner
Your strange scrolling webpage makes it hard to read the actual content
without scrolling past. Why do people insist on using this broken scrolling
behaviour.

~~~
chbrown
I'm sure they did a lot of user testing and decided that their Javascript-
powered scrolling mechanism was a better user experience than the default
browser behavior of just moving up and down proportionally to your mouse
wheel.

------
s3nnyy
>> Only then I realized that the way people live in Switzerland is not
something you can take for granted and in the end made me move back.

I agree. I lived in Germany for 20 years, now I live in Zurich and can't be
any happier. Check out my post "Eight reasons why I moved to Switzerland"
[https://medium.com/@iwaninzurich/eight-reasons-why-i-
moved-t...](https://medium.com/@iwaninzurich/eight-reasons-why-i-moved-to-
switzerland-to-work-in-it-c7ac18af4f90)

btw.: Switzerland also takes refugees, but because they want to, not because
they are forced by the EU.

~~~
Inthenameofmine
Interesting. Looks like I'm in the exact opposite boat. I'm a Swiss citizen
and moved to a developing country (that has huge population outflow atm due to
illegal immigration) to live and work.

I achieved in 2 years (from scratch, no savings whatsoever) more than I ever
could in Switzerland. My standard of living is incredible because of better
purchasing power, and life is so much more fulfilling because you can actually
change people's lives here.

In my experience the Swiss industry is also mostly non-meritocratic and hugely
biased towards authority and xenophobia. Not to mention the rigidness of work
culture itself. Looks like about 10% of the Swiss would agree with me. [1]

In my opinion, if you want to be an office employee, Switzerland is awesome,
but if you want to be an entrepreneur or do anything of importance for the
world, Switzerland is not the place.

[1] [https://www.eda.admin.ch/countries/china/en/home/living-
in/s...](https://www.eda.admin.ch/countries/china/en/home/living-in/swiss-
nationals-living-abroad.html)

~~~
s3nnyy
Could you also tell what you did in Switzerland and what you do now in this
"developing" country?

Power-distance or empathy to foreigners is no different to Germany, at least
in Zurich.

Switzerland can't be that bad as a place for software engineers:

1) Google placed the biggest software engineering office outside the US into
Zurich.

2) The ETH is the only place except for Oxford and Cambridge that can compete
with top-US schools.

~~~
Inthenameofmine
We do Bitcoin and Blockchain development [1]. Full stack JS and Go. Founded
the company a year ago, we're now 17 full time employees, fully bootstrapped.
Equity and cash flow with several US based startups. Not to mention that we're
now finishing projects international teams located in Switzerland weren't able
to pull off.

As a side note, half of the team we replaced in Switzerland were from the ETH
and Lausanne. Our interns here get more work done than those guys! It's
completely surreal, which is why I felt so strongly about your comment.

I got a US Engineering degree from RIT, when I got back to to Switzerland I
couldn't even get responses to waiter jobs, let alone programming. That said,
I'm first generation Swiss with a non-Swiss name, they probably didn't even
look at my CV.

I know people with similar stories in the industry, most of them in the
Ukraine and Thailand actually.

[1] [https://bitsapphire.com/](https://bitsapphire.com/)

~~~
s3nnyy
Did you grow up in the US? I can totally imagine that people have issues
adopting anywhere in Europe, as the culture here is not better or worse but
just different.

I have a CS degree from a top-CS school in Europe. I would also not get jobs
in the US, because no one knows anything but Oxford overseas.

------
rolux
Guardian article: [http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/01/berlin-group-
be...](http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/01/berlin-group-behind-
airbnb-for-refugees-overwhelmed-by-offers-of-help)

~~~
rolux
And just for the record: I submitted this story under the title "Airbnb for
refugees", with the quotes -- which I think might have yielded a more
insightful discussion than the question of "Refugees welcome" (or not), to
which the title was changed after an hour or so.

------
powertower
I really can't imagine anyone singing up for this except a few people.

The recent waves or unchecked immigration has produced nothing but negative
effects to the population, to such an extent that even recent immigrants
themselves want the doors shut.

~~~
arrrg
Racism and xenophobia together with paranoid isolationism all the way to
straight up facism have been on the rise recently, together with actual
violence against refugees, that much is certainly true, but you forget that
there are many different people with many different views living in Europe.
The outpouring of support (donations, volunteer work) has also been rising a
lot.

In Germany I have also seen a marked shift in media coverage, away from crisis
reporting towards a more honest approach portraying practical solutions and
steps, including volunteer work. The main evening news in Germany, for
example, has been airing a portraial of volunteers and their work and has
consistently shown the donation account number for wire transfers.

You may be stuck in your own isolationist filter bubble. There is a whole
world out there.

~~~
powertower
You're conveniently ignoring the other's side of the argument: such as
importing poverty, low wage or unskilled workers, crime, racism, xenophobia,
radical ideologies and religions, incompatible views and behavior, things such
as "no-go" zones, and all the other things that European countries and seeing
with non-European immigration, is not a net benefit to society.

The rise of the native push-back against immigration is an effect of, and not
a cause of the trouble.

Combined with a grim economic situation and dwindling economic opportunities
(such as gainful employment) is also not helping much with integration
matters.

Hence why people "stuck in your own isolationist filter bubble" are against
it.

~~~
arrrg
So refugees are to blame for xenophobia, racism and violent attacks on
themselves? Stop hitting yourself, eh? That’s absurd, completely and utterly.

Basic human rights and human dignity should be on all our minds. Compared to
that the problems you name are trivial matters. Oh my god, the obscenely rich
Europeans might lose a tiny bit of their living standard, how horrific!

That’s arrogance on the ivory tower. (It’s so absurd to me that giving up a
bit of your living standard in exchange for preserving more human dignity
overall is always treated as self-evidently unacceptable. I’m not sure why
that is. Yes, sometimes to insure that human rights are upheld and human
dignity is persevered it is necessary to sacrifice. So what. Trivial matters
to the super-rich like ourselves.)

All of this obviously doesn’t mean that pain, suffering and poverty don’t
exist in Europe and those problems don’t get less important, sure, but
comparatively speaking, I mean, come on … this attitude is just absurd.

~~~
powertower
> So refugees are to blame for xenophobia, racism and violent attacks on
> themselves? Stop hitting yourself, eh? That’s absurd, completely and
> utterly.

You are arguing with yourself as you are the one making that statement.

> Basic human rights and human dignity should be on all our minds. Compared to
> that the problems you name are trivial matters.

None of the things I listed, that are being brought in by immigration, are
trivial matters. Those are things that break societies, not sustain them.

What we are seeing today with immigration are highly incompatible groups
forming parallel societies within (and in many cases very intentionally), that
are actively hostile to the host in many ways.

~~~
arrrg
I don’t think there is any truth at all to what you are saying.

~~~
alphaddx
> I don’t think there is any truth at all to what you are saying.

So basically "You're wrong". Excellent way to refute their argument. I don't
think you know much about the subject matter at all and just spouting a bunch
of idealistic nonsense. So ghettos and no-go Islamic areas don't exist
according to you, everyone is being wonderfully integrated throughout Europe,
get real.

------
werber
Cool idea, but is this a non profit?

~~~
dao-
Yes, see [http://www.refugees-welcome.net/#faq](http://www.refugees-
welcome.net/#faq)

'Does this project make money with putting refugees in touch with flats?'

'No, “Refugees Welcome“ is a non-profit organisation. However, you can support
our work with a donation to the association Mensch Mensch Mensch which carries
this project. Our bank details are: Mensch Mensch Mensch e.V. IBAN:
DE88430609671167120500 BIC: GENODEM1GLS We can provide donation receipts.'

~~~
werber
Awesome!

------
roymurdock
I think this is a great idea.

It's easy to hate the concept of immigration and, by extension, the thought of
millions of immigrants pouring into your home country. In fact, we're
hardwired to have an aversion to this idea. Humans have always formed small
units such as families or tribes in order to compete with other humans for
limited resources. Immigrants are easily lumped together into a menacing tribe
of competitors.

But when you host someone, they stop being "just another immigrant" and you
can start to see them for what they were the whole time: a real person with a
voice, a smile, sorrow, joy, tastes, quirks, humor, goals, and dreams. Empathy
is crucial.

It's not going to solve the larger problem of the millions of immigrants
displaced by war or corrupt governance, but it probably will have a positive
impact on thousands of lives, which is an awesome outcome for a small group of
people looking to make a change through technology.

~~~
d9h549f34w6
If humans are hardwired to be averse to "millions of immigrants pouring into
your home country," why is that? Presumably you're referring to that aversion
being chosen by natural selection. That suggests that we're less likely to
have been descended from those who were more open to displacement by outside
populations, and more likely to come from those who guarded their borders.
Societies that don't keep barriers are less likely to pass on their genes or
memes to the future.

I'm assuming that the main difference between then and now is that an increase
in resources means we can share freely with more "outsiders." Presumably
resources aren't infinite, so what's the upper bound? How would we know?

------
domrdy
This is cool! Another interesting project I came across is workeer.de, which
is a job board for refugees. It's interesting because refugees in Germany do
not have a work permit. Great way to help people with technology.

------
dudul
"However, we want to encourage you also to welcome irregular refugees."

I know that in some countries this would be illegal, not sure about Germany
though TBH.

Edit: No sure why this got downvoted, especially considering the response by
mtrn.

~~~
mtrn
According to § 96 AufenthG it is illegal to aid people, who have no permit of
residence and whose application for asylum has been denied. However, this is
not as clear as it sounds, since emergency relief and humanitarian support is
encouraged in general.

However, as I read § 96 (I am no lawyer), it is slightly biased toward
trafficking and the commercial aspect of the facilitation of illegal entry.

------
prodmerc
It's a good thing they're doing here.

I wish there was something like this for migrant workers, who often get
treated as bad or even worse than refugees by their employers (yes, even in
Germany)...

------
vishalzone2002
related : [http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/more-
than-110...](http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/more-
than-11000-icelanders-offer-to-house-syrian-refugees-to-help-european-
crisis-10480505.html)

------
jqm
Maybe if the great powers weren't so busy playing geo-political chess by proxy
there wouldn't be so many refugees. Syria was fairly stable before the west
decided Assad should go. Syria was fairly stable before the west destabilized
Iraq. This is the problem.

~~~
dao-
edit: accidentally submitted too early, sorry.

Syria was fairly stable until its people made demands and their leader
responded with gun fire. Not sure where you see the role of "the West" in that
escalation. Do you think the problem was that the West sneakily infected
Syrian people with the absurd idea that they could have the same rights as
people elsewhere? Or maybe that the West failed to support Syrian rebels when
they begged for it, allowing Assad to go on fighting his people for years and
IS and other jihadist groups to gain ground in the country?

~~~
jqm
Most Syrians supported Assad. Also, many of the militant revolutionaries were
imported from other countries and supported/trained by foreign powers
including the gulf states. Now we have ISIS which is simply an extension of
that program that has maybe gotten a bit out of control.

Foreign meddling caused this problem. Very simply.

~~~
dao-
> Most Syrians supported Assad.

That's interesting. When exactly and according to what survey did most Syrians
support Assad? Do they still support him today or if not, when did they stop?

~~~
brl
Well there was this survey:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_presidential_election,_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_presidential_election,_2014)

Also surveyed at that time were the million Syrian refugees living in Lebanon:

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2014/05/28...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2014/05/28/this-
is-what-the-syrian-election-looks-like-in-lebanon/)

------
lexcorvus
What could possibly go wrong?

------
imahboob
This is brilliant!!

------
arxpoetica
I love this.

------
estefan
Bloody good luck getting them out again.

~~~
DasIch
Why would anyone want to? Germany desperately needs immigration to keep up the
economy and welfare system and overall immigrants pay more to Germany than
they get out of it.

~~~
estefan
You really can't think of a single scenario in which someone you don't know
goes to live with you and you want them to leave?

~~~
DasIch
Of course I can think of such scenarios, I can't think of any scenario in
which this would be a big problem though.

A lot of people live with flatmates who they didn't really know before living
together. It's unusual not to for students. This doesn't always work out
perfectly either.

To blow this up into a huge problem, if a refugee is involved, isn't anything
but racism.

~~~
estefan
It's to do with people with very few alternatives. If there's not a proper
contract in advance, well, you'll have to live with the consequences because
the courts probably won't want to hear from you.

------
zerolinesofcode
The fact that skin color is used to represent refugees is a disappointment.
Otherwise, it would be a great idea.

~~~
jerf
Sorry, did you just complain that pictures of the refugees is properly
representative of the real refugees in question? Should it be white? Japanese
maybe? No pictures at all? Pretty sure you'd complain then too.

------
ausjke
Is this the Arab-Spring ripple effect or should I say, aftermath?

This is a good Humanitarianism move, it eventually will boil down to
education, job, welfare however, the government needs to be prepared.

Due to the huge inequality of birth rate among different races/religions, I
foresee gradually the Arabic population will take over Europe, over probably
one or two hundred years that is. Similar thing will happen in USA, with the
Latino will become majority, over time that is.

It's all math and physics, the entropy and chaos theory, it's nature force.

~~~
jbssm
Latino don't live in closed communities. The often marry and have kids with
the other local communities and there is very little prejudice about that from
both parts. The real separation between communities in this case is socio-
economic.

With Muslims though, it's an all different story, so, yes, it will probably
have social consequences in the future.

