Purpose of the Event
Moving to a new country, forcibly or voluntarily, is a life-changing experience that comes with different challenges from integration to isolation. Each learner’s ability to interact and integrate is different though most face the challenge of making a new home for themselves and their families in unfamiliar surroundings. Learning the host language is central to this new beginning and goes hand in hand with adapting to a new culture. This is because language learning is primarily a social activity and must be accompanied with different levels of support from others in the host community, the refugee community, and at the policy level.
The importance of language in schools, training centres and workplaces cannot be underestimated in refugee communities, especially given that so often they find themselves economically, socially and politically marginalised. Were refugees able to participate fully in these institutions in host countries, there would be a dividend which would be to the advantage of both refugee and host communities alike. A key mechanism for yielding this latent value is multilingualism and the transformative power of language.
With a view to combat the social exclusion of refugees and migrants and promote their smooth integration into South African society, THI provides for free intense courses in English, adapted to the particular needs of the participants.
With this projects we aim not only to help refugee and migrant women develop their English but remind them of the skills, knowledge and experience they already have. It is not always about how much you know, but how confident you feel and so much of what we would like to develop through this project is confidence.
Format of the project
The language classes are designed to meet every day conversational needs of the participants. With specific chosen themes, the participants will learn how to express themselves in certain places (shops, schools etc.) and certain occasions.
The classes are held every Saturday morning for 12 consecutive weeks.
Background
Turquoise Harmony Institute was established in 2006) in order to foster relations among different faith and cultural traditions to contribute to the well-being of humanity. We encourage and facilitate exchange of views and experiences between different parts of the society and engage in activities that are aimed at stimulating critical thinking and analysis of affairs affecting the lives all people.
We engaged in many activities in our short history such as conferences, seminars, iftaar dinners, intercultural trips, dialogue awards, etc. The aim of these activities is to promote dialogue, tolerance and understanding among peoples of South Africa and the world by contributing to the universal values such as love, tolerance, democracy, human rights and justice.