Salzgitter in transition: Refugees and the challenge of integration

Salzgitter in transition: Refugees and the challenge of integration

In Salzgitter, a city in Lower Saxony, people are fighting against a stubborn prejudice as a “problem city”. The challenges are complex, as the high level of immigration is met with little support from the state and federal governments. A new documentary from ZDF that deals with these topics brings light into the dark corners of the integration problem. More and more residents are reporting that they feel alienated in their own city, while the infrastructure in many districts is old and dilapidated. Teacher Kristina Scholz from the See primary school emphasizes the difficulties in the education system, which suffered greatly from the wave of refugees in 2015. There are many children in class who do not know German, which makes life difficult for the teachers. “We are often left alone,” complains Scholz and calls for more support for her work news38.de.

Especially in districts of Salzgitter, the proportion of foreigners is up to 30 percent, which means a strong increase in the last ten years. The immigrants come primarily from the Middle East and North Africa. This development is made even more difficult by a lack of support and a lack of willingness to integrate on the part of some immigrants. The education and integration government is faced with the challenge of promoting cultural mixing and exchange, which is not easy in a city like Salzgitter.

A look at the immigrants

Haytham Allafi, a dental technician who fled Syria in 2015, is an example of successful integration. Today he runs a fashion store in Salzgitter-Lebenstedt, where almost 35 percent of the population is of foreign origin, including five percent Syrians. Allafi feels comfortable in his new home, but at the same time recognizes a tendency towards the emergence of parallel societies among migrants. “The Syrian community supports each other, but this makes it difficult to integrate into wider society,” he explains. Before the refugee crisis, there were around 120,000 Syrians living in Germany, whereas today there are around 975,000. These alarming figures illustrate the urgency of developing a functioning integration strategy zdf.de.

The integration of new citizens is described as challenging across the country, not least due to overburdened authorities and a sometimes exhausted welcoming culture. This situation is also reflected in schools. In a primary school in Salzgitter there are only three children who speak German as their native language. Teacher Christina Scholz often has to work with symbols and simple language to accommodate different language levels. This slows down lessons and makes the learning process more difficult for everyone involved.

The situation in numbers

The challenges of migration and integration issues are also made clear in the 2023 Migration Report, which was presented by the Federal Ministry of the Interior and Homeland. Loud bildungsserver.de The report contains comprehensive migration data on Germany and provides insight into the integration climate. A representative survey shows that many in the population have a negative attitude towards statements about integration, while at the same time the need for qualified workers is growing in numerous sectors. So where is the way out? The city of Salzgitter represents a microcosm of the problems and opportunities associated with migration.

The voices of committed citizens, like Stefani Steckhan, are unmistakable. She calls for a realistic immigration and integration policy that not only focuses on quantity, but also aims at the quality of integration. An inclusive society is beneficial for both newcomers and long-established citizens. As everyone knows, in a city like Salzgitter something has to be done to maintain social cohesion and to break new ground.