Maastricht Region Expats: The good, the bad and the ugly
October 21, 2009 2 Comments
The issue:
There is a leadership vacuum to initiate a strategic, creative problem-solving engine designed solely to address the well-documented lack of services, spirit and support for the Maastricht region’s expat community. In a coincidental way, this is tied into Maastricht’s bid to become European Cultural Capital City in 2018. What a powerful opportunity exists to embark on meaningful and sweeping cultural change.
The existing belief:
“We’ve already studied this issue!” We’ve had a research team and they provided us with their findings.” “We’re opening an international or expat desk at city hall. We’ve heard you. We’re moving forward.”
The reality:
It is very different. Being a member of the expat community here, one hears the deeper, underlying issues. This is not solely ‘anecdotal’ (gossip). There are serious disconnects, gaps that have to do with many criteria. But an overwhelming consensus from the expat, or international, residents is that Maastricht culture is not ‘embracing’. Once you’ve had your dinner out, picked your kid up from a good international school, seen a wonderful exhibit, heard André Rieu, you’re alone with only the other internationals. Maastricht and the region open only so far. Basically it is a tourist-oriented society. Actions speak louder than words and they say: “You are welcome to use our wonderful resources but please don’t expect to become a meaningful part of our society.” Hang out the “closed” sign.
Charles Landry, the world-renowned author and expert on creating Creative Cities, (places where diversity is truly embraced, welcomed and integrated into the existing culture), was in Maastricht last week as keynote of the Creativity and Innovation Conference. Landry notes that it is not enough to have nice cafés, museums, galleries, shopping, educational systems, parks, transportation, etc. Not enough. Rather, there must be leadership that guides meaningful change. Leadership that helps the public sector, businesses, educational institutions, NGOs, not-for-profits, etc., become themselves the change agents – change agents that understand that it is essential not only to attract but also to keep talent and diversity. To do so, like the City of Liverpool has shown, the public and private sector must find ways to meaningfully integrate this vast pool of ‘outsiders’, (a terrible Dutch word for those not inside the mainstream culture, buitenlanders.)
What’s at stake?
Everything. People who come here from other places leave. They tell others, “Oh, it’s a gorgeous area but too hard to integrate. Forget it!” Even the university students leave. We know that shrinkage is a future threat to cities. Bringing in internationals can and will help areas combat this imminent scenario.
Local businesses depend upon talent from around the globe. Local businesses need these highly educated guest workers to embrace and enjoy their experiences working, living and playing in the Maastricht region. Even the term guest worker brings up another time when less educated individuals were invited to do the work that no one else wanted to, then, once they completed their ‘assignments’ they were hung out to dry – left to fend for themselves. Not nice.
On the surface, this stunning area of the world seems ideal and idyllic. Lovely natural surroundings, interesting and comfortable housing, international schools for the children, a location that permits relatively easy access to everywhere in the world, nice cultural institutions, excellent accommodations and culinary establishments, fairs, festivals…. What else could anyone ask for?
Audience, audience, audience!
“We already know everything”, said one member of a planning team recently looking at the expat problem. “All we have to do is showcase, market, and promote our assets as listed above. The employers already know what their expats want.” This is precisely the thinking that keeps the problem encapsulated in its tight, shiny little bubble. The problem is, as we have seen with the economic crisis, eventually all bubbles burst.
Ask the expats what works, what doesn’t and why? Ask them in multiple ways. Hold “World Café” style forums all around the region. Have individual companies do this and prepare their findings. Convene “Open World Café” forums for those who live here but don’t work for the big companies. Hire the people from Maastricht University to facilitate them. They have excellent teams of facilitators working with young, bright professors in the business school and faculty.
Make the research a public relations effort in itself. Be visible. Show the expat community you care. Meet, tell stories, and integrate your talented ‘guest workers’ truly into the society here.
Expats are essential ingredients to a viable Maastricht region economy and cultural capital endeavor. They are audience and stakeholder. They represent an opportunity to open a society that is attractive but closed.
Communicate, communicate, communicate
Expats hear nothing from the leadership. An expat forum was held almost two years ago. The results were published but in very limited quantities. Public engagement means engaging the public in two–way conversations and publicizing the results. Communication is NOT A ONE TIME EVENT!
Begin an English language section in all relevant media. Employers could advertise to support this. Stores, cafés, restaurants could also advertise their goods in English to attract expat shoppers. Use the newspapers, brochures, and signage as ways to keep the dialogue flowing. Expats who stay on will learn the local language, but until they do, it is a responsibility to help them.
Show leadership
Someone has to take the lead in this. What is everyone afraid of? The entire community will sink or swim if something isn’t done to address how badly the expat situation is being handled.
Hold a creative strategic session with a neutral facilitator to help you figure out who should do what, when and why and with what resources. Divide up the tasks. But, please, do something.
About the author:
Drs. Susan Schaefer, APR, guides clients to seek answers in unexpected places. Certified as a facilitator from the MIT-Harvard Public Disputes Program, accredited in public relations (APR), with dual Masters’ Degrees in English Linguistics and European Public Affairs, Schaefer brings dynamic perspective to client work. The former newspaper publisher and editor, and active university professor and writer, has over 30 years experience providing counsel to government, business, NGO and not-for-profit leaders from such fields as higher education, banking, environment, architecture, engineering, finance, and law. Schaefer has received numerous professional honors, including the highest tribute in the United States’ public relations field, the Silver Anvil Award of Excellence, and the Diamond Achievement Award in Humanities from Temple University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, which acknowledges intellectual achievement and the integration of a liberal education with social responsibility.
Hi Susan, a thought provoking article touching issues you and I have discussed before and I have even suggested an English section for one of the major regional newspapers to its commercial director already, a few months ago. Action speaks louder than words, I agree fullheartedly, that is why Ron Aardening’s initiative to launch the mtricht.com and community my.mtricht.com sites can considered to be especially promising from the local point of view. It is encouraging people from all creeds and backgrounds to interact, which is one of his main goals, plus it can also function as a portal FROM Maastricht to non-native Maastricht inhabitants. That is why I, as a native Dutch speaker born in this city, can lend a helping hand by offering articles and interviews introducing people from this region, with either ties to international activities, ambitions, efforts and dreams or anything remotely linked. We are also actively seeking out those with an official voice in such matters as are important to expats. It’s part of what I hope is a positive chain in the grand scheme of things.
In order to communicate with expats, Dutch people or Maastrichtenaren need to bridge a few gaps, the language is one of them. If you bear in mind that often the ‘authentic’ Maastricht people prefer to be approached in their own dialect over Dutch, which can cause inconvenience for those who do not speak this dialect but simply Dutch with a soft g, it just adds to the complexity of it all. Let alone if you’re a native Dutch speaker, but not from this area. So it can even be worse for someone from abroad, as we can read in the chicken article from a few weeks ago
There’s also people from abroad who don’t feel the need to be accommodated for being someone from abroad. They kind of sway on the rhythm of things, find their own way (or not) and manage to stay alive among strangers
Is it a goal to keep those here, who come to study from abroad? Keep them in the area, sound and happy, instead of them skipping town and country with the knowledge they worked for, earning degrees and a right to make money, offered to them in attractive positions elsewhere in the world, a world for the young and restless, the young and adventurous…?
I think it works both ways, if we can speak of ‘two sides’ in this. Both involved have to make efforts. There’s Life Sciences companies in Randwyck, not just offering a future for academics (native or foreign), but also for local youngsters who enjoy working in a laboratory or plant, fulfilling their part in a production process. Because a region has to try to hang on to “its own” as well.
Why do foreign students come to Maastricht? Can’t they just stay in their own country to follow the same education? Of course they can, but studying abroad has so much more to offer… and given a growing sense of international identity, a Euroglobal feel… there is so much that can be tied together into a near tapestry, perhaps?
Maybe what we need is not a neutral facilitator, but a handy craftsman or craftswoman, with fingerspitzengefuhl for needlework and threads, patchmade sweaters and high spirited jumpers. A craftsperson who plays Maastricht and its region like a pipe organ or the Saint Servatius carillion, not just on occasions, but on structural levels, in crosswired levels, you name it
But one thing I do know. We don’t need people who think in numbers and money, or profit and power. Who hurry from one meeting to another, wasting time wasting energy scoring zilch for a result. It has got to be solid. And covering issues and practical things expats or international-oriented people can relate to.
Does anyone have an explanation, by the way, why there are so many coccinelles, lieveheersbeestjes, lady birds, ladybugs, lady beetles around??????
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coccinellidae
They do a good job in nature, can function as vacuum cleaners in the garden.
I like to translate these things in a universal sense, use it as a metaphore for something in our petty human existence.
It might be a sign that there’s a lot of cleaning to be done and being done, by ladies
Not that I am now on the barricades for a new wave in feminism… still, there’s too many men at the helm of things, often enough, am I right or am I right?
If Susan Schaefer wants to take her good, bad and ugly conjectures further and melt it into a constructive project to enhance integration of expats and natives, she can count me in
“Mestreech is Mestreech neet mie!” sighed aunt Germaine, an old Maastricht acquaintance of mine, a couple of years ago. This is local dialect and means: “Maastricht isn’t Maastricht anymore.”
She spoke Mestreechs, Hollands and French fluently, but not much English.
Ever since the University came to Maastricht, the old town developed from a picturesque provincial town into a booming international city, much to the regret of many of its elderly residents.
The town was built with marl stone and Namur stone, the new elements are built with new materials, mainly concrete.
The people spoke Mestreechs, and they still do, but the number of people that don’t is rapidly increasing.
But why is Maastricht so attractive? Because of the historical elements that are gradually being made invisible by the modern elements!
Modern managers are speaking about a “lively mix of old and new”, but Maastricht people know that’s only manager’s talk and it only leads to even more modern buildings.
So it’s only natural that Maastricht people should mistrust the influence of newcomers. However, Maastricht people had always foreign ancestors themselves. Newcomers can gain goodwill by engaging in the preservation of Maastricht historical heritage. So learn Dutch and Mestreechs and Maastricht history, and protest against the use of concrete as a building material.