During my time in Spain, I will be working with the Centro de Acogida a Refugiados de Vallecas (CAR), which is an organization with the primary goal of providing refugees with basic necessities. These include temporary housing, maintenance, psychosocial assistance, professional formation and more, with the primary goal of ascertaining the successful integration of admitted refugees and their families into Spanish society. This industry is primarily focused with social justice, in which it can specifically be understood to be a part of the international relations, immigration, and social work sector.

To be successful in this industry, one needs to be able to truly connect with and understand people, since the entire industry is based in human relations. Firstly, communication is extremely valued so as to be completely open with the people you work with and to truly understand the needs of the people you are working for. This includes active listening to avoid making unnecessary assumptions and to help people as much as one can. In addition, to work in this industry, cultural competency is critical, especially since social workers must be knowledgeable, unbiased and respectful towards diverse cultural backgrounds. Finally, I think empathy is especially important since social workers must be able to recognize the unique experiences people go through, validate it and therefore be able to more effectively help the people they are working with.

 In this sense, one must be completely open towards others, their backgrounds and their experience to therefore truly understand them and their needs. You essentially need skills that allow you to relate to any person to be able to validate their experiences as if they were your own. Although I am unsure as to what specific tasks I will be attending to, I think my responsibilities include attending refugees that arrive at the organization, listen to them, give them solutions and aid them in anything they need to carry out in Madrid. Because my responsibilities will likely involve working with people one on one, I need to be able to apply all the key skills mentioned before to be successful. I need to be able to actively listen and understand refugees that come to the center so that I can therefore help each individual however I can.

Specifically to Spain, however, I think that although many of these skills are still very applicable to this nation, they are much more specialized. In Spain, a majority of refugees come from Morocco or surrounding nations since it is so close to Spain. In this sense, not only do I have to focus on communication and actively listen, I will have to learn to be patient as I try to carry out cross-cultural communication. Not only will I be learning Spanish workplace culture, but I will also be learning about the culture of refugees and will have to actively mediate between both. In addition, many refugees in Spain have very specific needs, especially in consideration that many tend to move towards northern European nations. In this case, another skill will be having to dedicate as much as possible to helping refugees accomplish their goals.

I think working with refugees in a nation like Spain is also especially complex in consideration that there are certain negative cultural attitudes placed onto immigrants, as is common in many other European nations. I honestly don’t really know what to expect working in this industry in Spain, and I wonder how these attitudes may or may not manifest in the workplace. I think I will definitely deal with certain unique challenges that come with working in this sector in Spain. One of the main challenges I think I will experience is having to deal with cross-cultural differences in multiple ways, especially in having to manage multiple tasks at once that I have never done before. I worry I may feel a sense of helplessness in knowing that my contribution won’t change the state of immigration. This is especially paired with expecting the work I do to be emotional in a certain way, or worrying that I am doing the wrong thing and actually doing the opposite of what I intend to do.

Although I do have certain challenges I will likely have to face, I am also excited for the opportunity to learn, especially in figuring out if this is in fact the field I intend to go into. I am especially excited to use my Spanish in a professional setting, especially as I have rarely done this. I have my interview for this position tomorrow so hopefully all goes well. I look forward to being able to expand my experiences in this industry.