[WATCH] 'Take ownership of your lives, don't blame racism', African migrants urged in integration course

Video is unavailable at this time.

African migrants were given a dose of tough love during an integration course on Tuesday night, in which they were urged to take ownership of their lives and to stop blaming the system and racism for their miseries.

Vanja Vajagic, a rehabilitation and education therapist, delivered a powerful session to a group of some 30 migrants in which she encouraged them to re-educate themselves, form networks, and stop labelling themselves as Africans, blacks or migrants.

“I cannot help you because I don’t know what’s best for you…only you do,” she told them at the course, which was held at the Valletta offices of the Malta Council for the Voluntary Sector. “Don’t blame the system because the system is not wrong. It is up to you to find a way to help yourself.

The motivational speech, which was organised by the African Media Association Malta, was punctuated by warnings from a number of migrants that they are treated as second-class citizens in Malta because of their skin colour.

“Once I saw a black man and a white man try to enter Havana [the Paceville nightclub]; the bouncer stopped the black man to ask him for his ID but allowed the white man to enter. Why is that?” one migrant asked.

Another was more harsh in his criticism, claiming that Maltese police often treat black migrants as sub-human.

However, Vajagic challenged him to seek different forms of entertainment, arguing that Paceville is not the place where anyone can expect to get expected. While she admitted that racism is a “cancer on society”, she warned the migrants to rise above people’s hated and not allow it turn it into racists themselves.

“When we get hurt by racism and nationalism, we often end up becoming racists ourselves, so how then can we fight against racism? In my time, that was called hypocrisy.”

Indeed, she recounted a time when two Nigerians had got offended that she had asked another passer-by for information about a bus, claiming that she hadn’t approached them instead because she was a racist.

She also urged the migrants not to lose heart in the bureaucratic processes of Maltese administration, recounting how she – as a Serbian migrant – needed to fill out 84 documents before being awarded a Maltese ID card.

The migrants appeared largely receptive of her speech and one of them, Hassan Abdullahi – a Somalian – told MaltaToday at the end that it would be “shameful” to brand the Maltese people as racist.

“Some of them are racist, yes, but the large majority of them are very good to us.”

Before the course, Vajagic told MaltaToday that her plan was to inject the migrants with a boost of self-confidence so that they will be able to present themselves as skilled, educated workers.

“We want to emphasise that being a migrant doesn’t mean that you must work as a cleaner or a construction worker or some other poorly-paid job. There are migrants in Malta who are maths and physics teachers and chefs, but are stuck in menial jobs in which they have to wake up at 6am and work until 7pm. They have no time to educate themselves or improve their lifeskills or maintain their health.”

Video is unavailable at this time.

Video is unavailable at this time.