Syrian woman in Pinzgau

Path to integration: “It starts with the language”

Hainour is well integrated in Zell am See: she has a job and her husband works in the Caritas village of St. Anton. Caritas has launched a project for small farmers in Syria to alleviate the hardship in their war-torn homeland.

(Bild: Caritas)

Hainour Khalaf fled across the sea with her family nine years ago. She is now Austrian and has found a new home in Zell am See. As an integration consultant, she now gives other refugees tips and helps them to find their feet.

Hainour has now fully arrived in her new home: an apartment in Zell am See in Pinzgau, a job, her family with her husband and three daughters are well integrated and she speaks German surprisingly well. "I never gave up in Syria and I'm not giving up now either," she says gratefully.

Hainour Khalaf's story shows that, despite all the criticism of migration processes in Austria as a country of immigration, there is much more than crime and parallel gang worlds. The be-all and end-all - especially at the beginning - is good access to society.

Home is not where you are born, but where you feel you belong. Freedom, rights for women - it's as if we've traveled into the future.

Hainour Khalaf aus Syrien über ihr neues Zuhause im Pinzgau

Austrians are not generally closed-minded, says Hainour. She has already made some really good friends. One particularly happy moment was when the family was able to move into their own apartment after starting out in refugee camps. Hainour: "Then we could finally take a deep breath."

Arriving with a proper job and her own apartment
She studied law in Syria. Her professional dream was to become a judge, but as a Kurd she was denied this. In Austria, she initially worked as an interpreter and intern in hotels. For the past year, she has been permanently employed as an integration consultant at the Diakonie Refugee Service. "Here I can show refugees a way forward."

"Dialect is like a language of its own"
Her own path was more than rocky: as a Kurd, she has already learned a new language several times. In Syria, Kurdish was frowned upon even before the war. After fleeing across the sea, she always knew: "I want to learn German quickly." A volunteer language trainer came to her in the refugee camp. And another course is probably necessary in Pinzgau: "The dialect is like a language of its own," she laughs.

Her luggage has become lighter and lighter over the years. "Normal people travel with clothes, a toothbrush and personal belongings. We travel with suitcases full of sorrow and sadness," says Hainour thoughtfully.