Refugees and those in refugee-like situations urgently need language support in order to communicate not only with officials and with health and other short-term providers (e.g. in transit camps), but also with volunteers and NGOs who can play a very important role supporting them in transit situations and on arrival at their destinations.
This toolkit will be made available in English and French, and will also be translated into the languages of the main transit and receiving countries of volunteers, e.g. German, Greek, Italian and Turkish. It will include linguistic resources in the languages of both volunteers and refugees, such as Arabic and Somali, and provide coherent generic templates which can then be adapted and complemented for use in different linguistic and social contexts.
This toolkit will be accessible via the Council of Europe’s website, though other modes of dissemination may also be used. It is anticipated that the toolkit will be available by mid-2017.