(1) Direction of intercultural community building
Hamamatsu City recognizes foreign residents as important partners in community development and actively promotes interculturalism with the aim of creating a truly coexistent society based on respect of rights and fulfillment of obligations that spring from a deep mutual understanding and acceptance of cultures and senses of value between Japanese and non-Japanese residents.
(2) Unique initiatives
(i) Establishment of the Committee for Localities with a Concentrated Foreign Population
Hamamatsu is at the forefront of Japan’s local governments in implementing intercultural policies;
however, issues stemming from legal and regulatory problems are difficult to resolve by the city alone.
Hamamatsu thus approached other cities with a large population of foreign residents from South America and in 2001 established the Committee for Localities with a Concentrated Foreign Population, which exchanges information on policies and issues related to intercultural community building and actively makes policy recommendations to the national government.
(ii) Hamamatsu Multicultural Center / Hamamatsu Foreign Resident Study Support Center
Hamamatsu implements intercultural policies from the two bases of the Hamamatsu Multicultural Center, which supports foreign residents such as through multilingual living consultation, and the Hamamatsu Foreign Resident Study Support Center, which offers Japanese-language training for both adults and children.
Both centers are operated through the collaborative efforts of non-profit organizations, volunteers, and local institutions.
(iii) Hamamatsu Foreign Residents Council
By municipal bylaw, the city has established the Hamamatsu Foreign Residents Council, whose membership of eight foreign residents investigates, deliberates on, and reports back to inquiries from
January 18, 2012 Intercultural city encounters Europe-Asia／多文化共生都市 国際シンポジウム 17 the mayor every two years.
(iv) Support for non-Japanese children
As educational support for non-Japanese children, Hamamatsu dispatches bilingual supporters to public schools and holds Japanese and native language classes.
Japanese law does not require foreign guardians to enroll their children in school, and hence whether or not a child receives an education is at the discretion of his or her family. There are five schools in the city for foreign nationals approved by foreign national governments, which along with public schools serve as important providers of education for foreign children.
To aid these schools for foreign nationals, Hamamatsu dispatches Japanese-language teachers and assists students in purchasing textbooks, and provides subsidies to schools approved by Shizuoka Prefecture.
In fiscal year 2011, the city also launched a program to eliminate school non-attendance in non-Japanese children over the next three years, and is currently working to develop a scheme that discourages non-attendance.
(3) Policy recommendations to the national government
Hamamatsu regularly makes recommendations to the national government through the Committee for Localities with a Concentrated Foreign Population. Its efforts have seen some level of progress; for instance, the government set up the Office for the Coordination of Policies on Foreign Residents within the Cabinet Office in 2009, and established the Action Plan on Measures for Foreign Residents of Japanese Descent in September 2010.
However, to prepare a social system in which foreign residents can lead stable lives, Japan urgently needs to form basic guidelines on the acceptance of foreigners. And to clarify the country’s responsibility toward foreign residents and deal with them in a cross-sectoral, comprehensive manner, it is essential that it establish an “agency for foreign residents.” Hamamatsu is currently making these two recommendations to the national government.
January 18, 2012 Intercultural city encounters Europe-Asia／多文化共生都市 国際シンポジウム 18 Ansan’s multicultural support policies
Jung Seung-bong, Deputy Mayor of Ansan City
The city of Ansan is located 30 kilometers southwest of Seoul near the West Sea, within an hour’s distance from Seoul.
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To briefly describe the city’s current situation, Ansan’s total area is 148.4㎢ or 1.4% of Gyeonggi-do (Gyeonggi Province), with a population of approximately 760,000. Administratively, Ansan has 2 “gu” or districts and 25 “dong” or towns. The city is also home to 112 schools, over 8,000 companies, and roughly 160,000 laborers. Our city budget is $943 million.
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In terms of Ansan’s infrastructure, our road pavement coverage is 97.6%, our housing supply ratio 99.3%, our water supply rate 99.7%, and our sewage treatment rate 100%. Ansan’s city-wide greenspace ratio is 72%, which is the highest in Korea. Our new and renewable energy distribution rate including power from our tidal power plant stands at 4.6%, which is also the highest in Korea.
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Next, please allow me to introduce the characteristics that make Ansan unique. Ansan was Korea’s first completely planned city, modeled after Australia’s Canberra. It boasts a fabulous transportation network and is the center of logistics thanks to the metropolitan railroad network. Ansan is also an eco-friendly city with its rich, lush parks and green belts. It is also a great destination for marine tourism, with excellent eco-tourism resources such as the Daebudo Island and the Ansan Lake Sihwa Tidal Power Plant. Ansan is a city of culture and the arts, the birthplace of ancient scholars of Korean modern history and a place alive with the spirit of the arts. Finally, Ansan is a leading city for our nation’s industry and economy, as evidenced by our Banwol/Sihwa Industrial Complex.
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Moving on to statistics, the number of registered foreigners in Ansan stands at over 994,000 for all of Korea, as of the end of November 2011. Every year, we have witnessed a +9% increase. Ansan’s migrant population is currently around 44,000, and this rate is increasing over 11% consistently each year. Roughly 1.39 million migrants are staying in Korea.
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The approximately 44,000 foreigners staying in Ansan come from 67 countries and when classified by nationality, roughly 31,000 or 71% of the total are Chinese, 2,600 or 5.9% of the total are
January 18, 2012 Intercultural city encounters Europe-Asia／多文化共生都市 国際シンポジウム 19 Vietnamese, 5.5% are Uzbeks, 3.1% are Filipino, and 3.1% are Indonesian.
In terms of their visa status, 32,000 or 73.3% of the total are migrant laborers, 4,800 or 10.6% of the total are immigrants by marriage, 1% are international students or language program students, 1%
are skilled workers, 0.4% are corporate investors, and 13.1% came on other visas. Ansan’s migrants constitute 5.9% of the total population.
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Next, allow me to deliver my remarks on the areas with heavy foreigner concentration. Ansan’s Wongok-dong has the highest foreigner ratio in Korea at 67%. Two out of every 3 people in Wongok-dong are foreign-born. For this reason, Wongok-dong is called “an Asia within Korea,” “a leading multicultural city,” and “a town without borders.”
Wongok-dong’s high density of foreigners stems from many factors, e.g., the many jobs created by the Banwol/Sihwa Industrial Complex, more affordable housing compared to other metropolitan cities, a convenient subway and public transportation system, and the presence of other migrants from abroad who established roots here earlier.
Korea has, along with Ansan, 38 local autonomous regions that each has over 10,000 foreign residents.
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Next I’d like to move on to the current status of the Ansan Migrant Community Support Center.
Ansan opened its Migrant Laborer Support Center in 2005 to meet the administrative needs of our multicultural residents and offer administrative services at a quality comparable to that received by Korean citizens. The center was newly renovated in March 2008 and re-opened as the Migrant Community Support Center.
Currently, the Migrant Community Support Center has a free medical clinic, a multicultural library, a culture center, interpreters on demand, a foreign currency remittance center, and a global children’s center that serves over 20,000 foreigners a month. Last year alone, over 3,000 public servants, welfare workers, and school officials visited our Migrant Community Support Center to learn of our practices in assisting foreign residents in Ansan.
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Next I’d like to explain Ansan’s support measures for foreigners.
Firstly, To Establish Basis of Support for Foreign Residents
We have passed an ordinance for foreign residents in Ansan to receive administrative support
January 18, 2012 Intercultural city encounters Europe-Asia／多文化共生都市 国際シンポジウム 20 measures and receive assistance in settling in our local communities. We have built a Migrant Community Support Center to offer Korean language education, vocational training, support for multicultural families, and culture and sports activities 365 days out of the year. We have a policing unit for Wongok-dong that patrols the neighborhood from 6:00 p.m. to 4:00 a.m. in an effort to prevent crime and maintain order in districts with a dense foreigner population.
We operate a consultative body that discusses the development of new policies and information on ongoing projects. We opened a Foreign Currency Remittance Center within our Migrant Community Support Center to help foreign laborers send funds to their families back home. Our Multicultural Library has over 9,700 books from 17 countries and foreigners can read or borrow books from their homeland.
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Secondly, To Assist Foreign Residents Adjust to Life in Korea and Settle Comfortably in Ansan
We offer social integration programs, Korean language education, skills repatriation education, and computer training to foreign residents to help them obtain citizenship and settle in Ansan.
We also publish Ansan Harmony (a multicultural newsletter) and the Common Legal Guidebook on a regular basis to provide information.
Furthermore, we offer lessons in taekwondo, soccer, badminton, table tennis, basketball, volleyball, and other sports so that foreign residents can enjoy wholesome activities in their spare time. The center also plans trips to cultural and historic sites, festivals, and cultural performances to encourage migrants to experience Korean culture.
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Thirdly, To Establish Basis for Improving the Rights of Foreign Residents
We became the first city in Korea to pass the Ordinance on Human Rights of Resident Aliens, which garnered us the Korean Human Rights Award. We launched a Committee on Human Rights of Resident Aliens to offer advisory and consultative support in improving the rights of foreign residents, and we are also running an Interpretation and Support Center that offers consultations in 10 languages including Chinese, Bahasa Indonesia, and Thai to hear of residents’ grievances.
Our free clinic has an internal medicine ward, a dentist’s office, and a Chinese medicine clinic that offers free treatment. Furthermore, our migrant monitor group, which includes 37 migrants from 15 countries, has interpreters for companies, hospitals, and multicultural families who offer their
January 18, 2012 Intercultural city encounters Europe-Asia／多文化共生都市 国際シンポジウム 21 services upon request. We have an emergency relief program that assists foreign residents with emergency funds, medical costs, and repatriation costs.
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Fourthly, To Assist Multicultural Families in Settling Comfortably in Ansan
Our Multicultural Family Support Center helps multicultural families adjust to life in Korea as quickly as possible. The center offers Korean language education, home-school visits, and interpretation/translation services. Through our information services for newlywed immigrants by marriage, we offer necessary information on Korea to marriage immigrants, their spouses, and their families so they can settle comfortably in Ansan.
Furthermore, our We Start Global Children’s Center offers support for multicultural children under the age of 12 to help them grow up healthy and sound. We run a preparatory school that teaches Korean language and basic subjects to older children who were born and have reached maturity in their home country before moving to Korea.
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Fifthly, To Raise Awareness for Multiculturalism and Create a Multicultural Community
We have designated May 20 as Together Day for foreign residents and Korean locals to come together and build a multicultural community. We also host Eoullim Madang festivities and support other international cultural festivals including Thailand’s Songkran Festival and Indonesia’s Ramadan.
We train immigrants by marriage as multicultural instructors who visit kindergartens, elementary, junior high, and high schools to teach traditional games, costumes, and craft-making from their cultures as part of the multicultural “traveling classrooms” program. These immigrants by marriage, who are all native speakers, visit local children’s centers to teach English, Japanese, and Chinese as well as offer various multicultural lessons.
Furthermore, we give monthly lectures on multiculturalism to students and the public to help raise their awareness, and we also offer education on understanding multiculturalism that includes various activities.
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January 18, 2012 Intercultural city encounters Europe-Asia／多文化共生都市 国際シンポジウム 22 Lastly, To Revitalize Ansan’s Multicultural Village Special Zone
Ansan’s Wongok-dong became the first city in Korea with high population density of foreigners to be designated a Multicultural Village Special Zone by the Ministry of Knowledge Economy, in 2009. We have plans to revitalize the local economy by offering multicultural tours and expanding an exotic commercial district filled with restaurants specializing in foreign cuisine. Overall, we are attempting to encourage the integration of migrants into our local communities and present a pioneering model of welfare and a multicultural community for foreign residents.
To do so, we have designated this area as the Multicultural Food District and built symbolic monuments and improved the environment for restaurants in the area. With our Migrant Community Support Center, the Promotion and Learning Center on Multiculturalism, and the Children’s Library, we are striving to build this Special Zone into an arena for multicultural education and experience.
This concludes Ansan’s presentation on support policies for the city’s foreign residents.
Thank you.
January 18, 2012 Intercultural city encounters Europe-Asia／多文化共生都市 国際シンポジウム 23 Intercultural city encounters Europe-Asia
City profile: Botkyrka (Botkyrka)
Population: c. 82,608 (2010) (average age – 37)
（Percentage of the population with foreign background: 53,2% (themselves born in another country or both parents born in another country)
Mayor: Katarina Berggren
Principal foreign populations: Turkish, Syrian, Iraqi, Chilean, Lebanese Principal religious groups: Protestantism, Orthodox Christianity, Islam
Although once a major European power, Sweden has for most of its history been an ethnically homogenous country of emigration. Only after the Second World War did the rapid growth of the Swedish economy necessitate the recruitment of migrant labour. Initially migrants came chiefly from Finland, and later from countries in the South of Europe, for instance Greece and Yugoslavia. The Swedish authorities was unusual in that, unlike their counterparts in Germany, they did not consider new migrants to be
‘guest-workers’ who would return home, but citizens, to be accorded the same rights as Swedes.
During the 1970s and 1980s the former labour migration was replaced by refugee migration. New inhabitants from non-European, non-Protestant, non-white and non-Western migrant groups followed.
And Sweden became a major recipient of refugees. In 1975 the first official policy related to migration was adopted, perhaps the most liberal in Europe at the time, predicated on the distinctive Swedish social contract about socia welfare, equal rights and recognition of different cultures. This first policy took a step away from the ideal about assimilation. That is that the new citizens were expected to assimilate the swedish value of “the good life” and forget the family history and culture.
However, it is argued this period was short lived and that by the mid-1980s Sweden had embarked upon a long ‘retreat from multiculturalism’4, through a series of legislative measures which claimed to be responding to a perceived risk of ‘cultural clashes’ between norms and values considered to be ‘typically’
Swedish - such as the ideal of gender equality - and those held to be alien and external to Swedish society.
Although the Swedish political class are now less favorably disposed towards multi-culturalism, the authorities in Botkyrka reject assimilationism, and regard interculturalism as an opportunity to reform and re-invigorate Swedish migration and diversity policy. The municipality has adopted an intercultural strategy, and appointed an intercultural programme coordinator.
Botkyrka, twenty five minutes’ journey from central Stockholm, is Sweden´s most ethnically diverse
January 18, 2012 Intercultural city encounters Europe-Asia／多文化共生都市 国際シンポジウム 24 municipality, and its inhabitants have a total of 160 nationalities (out of 193 possible in the world) speak more than one hundred languages. This presents many opportunities, but has also been accompanied by social problems, including high unemployment, lower than average educational attainment, and rates of residential segregation amongst the highest in Sweden.
The city is making particular efforts to tackle segregation by encouraging links between schools, one of which has embraced interculturalism as part of its radical pedagogy, and through the activities of the long-established Youth Council. Councilors have been issued with iPads which they use to watch videos in which local residents are asked for their opinions, which then form part of the decision making process.
The municipality also produces a youth magazine which aims to encourage informed participation in the affairs of the borough by young people, which complements a local newspaper, also produced by the municipality, and staffed by journalists who have left the mainstream press in order to ‘tell a positive story about diversity’. The newspaper often features profiles of residents, has a large readership, and is well-regarded.
The municipality was the first in Sweden to elect a member of an ethnic minority as its mayor and the first to introduce ‘one stop shops’ which combine local government services with social support and youth counseling.
Botkyrka is also notable for the extent to which the municipality supports interculturalism in the arts, through its funding of both a Multicultural Centre and the Subtopia arts complex, which has gained national and international prominence for its programme, which includes the largest circus troupe in Northern Europe, and aims to encourage ‘creativity and confidence’ in residents. That such a comparatively small organization should support a nationally prominent arts venue is almost unprecedented, and indicative of the level of commitment to interculturalism in Botkyrka.
January 18, 2012 Intercultural city encounters Europe-Asia／多文化共生都市 国際シンポジウム 25 Ota City Initiatives on Interculturalism
Tadayoshi Matsubara, Mayor of Ota City