Questions to Ask Refugees
These questions to ask refugees are for a volunteer, a host, a teacher or a neighbor meeting someone who has recently resettled, and for a student working out what to ask a refugee in an interview. All 57 follow the order a friendship takes: a first meeting, settling in, work and school, home and family, their story, and looking ahead. The guide says which groups suit which conversation and what to leave alone, starting with why they left.
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The questions
Each question, and why to ask it
First meeting
How do you say your name, and am I saying it correctly?
Why ask it
Names get shortened and mispronounced constantly, and correcting people repeatedly is wearing. Asking once, then using it properly, does more than most gestures of welcome.
What language do you feel most comfortable in, and would you rather use an interpreter?
Why ask it
People often manage in a second language out of politeness and lose accuracy doing it, especially with medical, legal, or financial words. Offering the interpreter yourself removes the need for anyone to admit difficulty.
Is this a good time to talk, or would another day suit you better?
Why ask it
People in resettlement are summoned to conversations far more often than they are invited to them. A real choice about when, with a no that costs nothing, sets this one apart from the appointments.
How long have you been here, and where were you living before this?
Why ask it
Time here and the route taken shape everything else, since someone six weeks off a plane has different needs than someone three years in with a lease ending. Ask about places rather than reasons, and let the answer stop wherever they choose.
Who is here with you?
Why ask it
Present tense and countable: a husband, three children, a cousin across town, nobody. It tells you the size of the household you are talking to without asking who is missing, which is a separate question for much later.
What part of town are you living in, and how are you finding it?
Why ask it
A neighborhood is safe ground, and the second half usually turns up something concrete: the walk to the shop, the noise through the wall, a neighbor who waved. Do not ask for an address, because the area is enough.
What does an ordinary day look like for you now?
Why ask it
Answers often reveal an enormous amount of waiting: for documents, for appointments, for permission to work. Understanding how much of the day is spent waiting explains more about the experience than any question about the journey.
What have you had a chance to see here so far?
Why ask it
In the first weeks the map can be an airport, an office and one bus route. The answer shows how small it still is, and an invitation to the park or the market follows from it easily.
What has surprised you about this place?
Why ask it
This invites them to be the observer rather than the observed, which is a rare position for someone who is usually being assessed. The answers are often about small things: the weather, how neighbors behave, how quiet the evenings are.
Is there anything you do not eat or drink that I should know about?
Why ask it
A host should ask before the meal and never at the table. Religious rules, fasting days and plain dislike all get the same short answer here, and nobody has to explain which one it is.
Settling in
How are the practical things going: housing, transport, paperwork?
Why ask it
Logistics are usually where things are actually going wrong, and they are easier to discuss than feelings. You may surface something fixable, such as a bus route or a missing document, within a minute.
What has been the most confusing thing to figure out here?
Why ask it
Confusion points at systems rather than at the person: insurance forms, credit history, school enrollment, how appointments work. Some answers you can explain on the spot, and the rest tell you which office to ring together.
Who do you go to when something goes wrong?
Why ask it
You learn whether there is a real support network, a caseworker, a relative, a congregation, or whether someone is managing alone. If the answer is nobody, that is the most important thing you will hear all conversation.
Do you have a caseworker or an agency helping you, and are they easy to reach?
Why ask it
The second half is the one that matters, since a name on a form is little use if the phone goes to voicemail. Knowing who holds the file also tells you where to send a question you cannot answer yourself.
Is there a letter or a form you would like someone to read through with you?
Why ask it
Official post piles up when it arrives in a language you are still learning, and some of it carries a deadline. Read it together and explain what it says. What to do about anything legal is for the caseworker or a lawyer, not for you.
How do you get to appointments, the shops and school?
Why ask it
Transport decides which jobs, classes and clinics are really within reach. A bus that stops running at six, or a pass that has not arrived, explains a missed appointment better than any guess about motivation.
Have you been able to see a doctor or a dentist here when you needed one?
Why ask it
Keep it to access: whether they are registered, whether an interpreter was offered, whether they know where to go at night. What the visit was for is private, and how coverage works depends on the country and their status, so ask the agency how it works there.
Is your home warm enough, and does everything in it work?
Why ask it
Someone who feels they ought to be grateful will seldom complain about a broken heater or a damp wall. A direct question about the building gives permission to mention it, and the landlord or housing officer is the one to chase.
Do you have a phone and internet that work for what you need?
Why ask it
Most systems assume a phone number, an email address and data to spare, and the same phone is the line to family abroad. A cracked screen or an expired plan can sit behind a whole string of missed messages.
Which rule or habit here do you wish someone had explained on day one?
Why ask it
Bins, queues, how early to arrive for an appointment, whether shoes come off at the door: nobody writes these down, and getting one wrong in public stings more than a missed form. Whatever they name, check that you have not left the same gap for them somewhere else.
What would genuinely help this month, rather than in general?
Why ask it
The word month forces something actionable: a ride to an appointment, help reading a lease, a winter coat in a specific size. Open offers of help usually produce a polite deflection.
Work and school
What did you do for work or study before, and what would you like to be doing here?
Why ask it
Many people arrive with degrees and trades they are not currently able to use, and asking treats them as more than a case file. Where the two answers are far apart, the reason is more often a license, a language exam or a missing certificate than ability.
Is anything holding up your work permit or the recognition of your qualifications?
Why ask it
A general feeling of being stuck normally breaks down into two or three concrete blockages: an authorization date, a credential evaluation, a language requirement. Who may work, and from when, depends on the country and on status, so take the detail to the caseworker.
Is there something you are good at that nobody here has asked you about?
Why ask it
People get placed in whatever work is available and rarely asked about anything else. The answer sometimes turns into paid work, teaching, or a role in a community group.
What is work like here compared with what you were used to?
Why ask it
For someone already in a job, the differences are the story: shift patterns, how a boss gives instructions, whether colleagues eat together. An engineer stacking shelves may have more to say than the question expects, so leave room.
How are the language classes going, and do the times work for you?
Why ask it
Class times clash with shifts, childcare and bus timetables far more often than with willingness. A class at the wrong level or the wrong hour is something a coordinator can change once somebody says so.
Where do you get to practice the language outside class?
Why ask it
A classroom teaches the forms and a neighbor teaches how people really talk. If the answer is nowhere, an hour of conversation a week is one of the few things almost any volunteer can offer.
How are your children finding school?
Why ask it
Parents often notice problems they have no route to report. Language support, bullying and a wrong grade placement all tend to surface here, and a teacher who is told can usually act.
Do the letters and messages from school make sense to you?
Why ask it
Permission slips, closure days and parents' evenings arrive in the school's language, often by way of a child who edits what gets passed on. Going through the week's messages together is a small, regular job that keeps the parent in charge.
Home and family
What do you cook when you want to feel at home?
Why ask it
You get a dish, who taught it, and usually one ingredient the local shops do not stock. Finding the market across town that sells it is a favor you can actually do, and an invitation to taste the result tends to follow.
What do you miss that nobody thinks to ask about?
Why ask it
The unasked things are usually specific and ordinary: a bakery, a radio program, the sound of a particular street, a way of arguing with friends. It gets past the language of loss into what daily life actually felt like.
What music or television do you put on at home?
Why ask it
A light question with a real answer: a singer, a football league, a serial watched at the same hour as relatives abroad. It gives you something to ask after next time that has nothing to do with paperwork.
Which holidays or festivals matter most to you, and how do you keep them here?
Why ask it
Dates on a different calendar pass unnoticed by everyone around a family, which is its own kind of loneliness. Write the next one down and send a greeting on the day.
Where do you go when you want to be around people who speak your language?
Why ask it
Ties to an existing community carry people through a great deal, and their absence is worth knowing about. Do not assume a shared nationality means a shared community, since divisions travel with people.
Have you found a place to pray or worship here, if that is something you want?
Why ask it
Never guess a faith from a passport, and take a plain no as easily as an address. Where the answer is not yet, looking up the nearest one together and going along the first time is a small, concrete favor.
What is one thing from your old home you wish you had been able to bring?
Why ask it
One object keeps the question bounded: a sewing machine, a box of photographs, a set of tools. Some people left with a bag and an hour's notice, so be ready for a long list or a short silence.
Who is still there, and how do you keep in touch?
Why ask it
Ask gently and be ready for the answer to be complicated: people still waiting, people they cannot reach, people they send money to. Money sent home can be a large and invisible pressure on a household budget here.
Is there anyone you are trying to reach or bring here?
Why ask it
Separated family is common and is often the reason someone cannot concentrate on anything else, but it belongs to them to raise. Ask once, plainly, and do not guess at whether it can be done: family reunion rules depend on the country and on status, so that part goes to the caseworker or an immigration lawyer.
What do your children ask you about home?
Why ask it
Younger children may remember little, and older ones more than their parents would like. How a parent answers them is a quieter way into the subject than asking the parent outright, and they can stop wherever they wish.
What do you want your children to keep, and what do you not mind them losing?
Why ask it
For parents this is often the live question underneath everything else. Language, faith, food, and manners get sorted into categories, and the ones they are willing to let go tell you what they think the cost of belonging here is.
Their story
Is there a part of your story you would like to tell, and a part you would rather leave out?
Why ask it
Asked first, this hands over the editing before anything is said. Someone who has had to recount everything to officials seldom gets to choose the chapters, and may tell more because of it.
May I take notes or record this, and is there anything you would not want repeated?
Why ask it
Ask before the notebook or the phone comes out, and say who will read or hear it. Some people have relatives still in danger, so a name, a face or a town left out can matter a great deal. Let them set the terms, and keep to them.
What was the street you grew up on like?
Why ask it
A street from before the upheaval is somewhere most people are glad to go back to in words: the shop on the corner, who sat outside in the evening, the walk to school. It shows a class or a reader a home and not only a crisis.
What would you like people here to know about the country you come from?
Why ask it
News coverage shrinks a country to its worst year. This lets them put back the university, the coastline, the wedding that lasted three days, which makes it a strong question in front of a class or an audience.
What do people here get wrong about you or about where you are from?
Why ask it
This lets someone correct the story told about them, which is rarely offered. Expect corrections about their country, their education, their religion, or the assumption that they arrived with nothing.
How would you like to be described when people talk about you?
Why ask it
Words like refugee, migrant, and asylum seeker carry legal meanings and personal weight, and people differ on which they accept. Asking is the only way to avoid labeling someone in public with a term they reject.
What was the hardest thing about your first weeks here?
Why ask it
It keeps the difficulty on this side of the journey, where the answers are things like silence, cold, forms and not knowing how to buy a bus ticket. Anything from before arrival is theirs to add.
Who helped you along the way that you would like to thank?
Why ask it
Gratitude is a gentler door into the journey than hardship. People name a stranger who lent a phone, a teacher in a camp, an official who took extra time, and say as much about the road as they choose to.
If things changed there, would you want to go back?
Why ask it
For some the answer is tomorrow, for some never, and for many it shifts with the news. Ask it late and only of someone you know, because from a stranger it can sound like a hint that they should.
What do you wish people would stop asking you?
Why ask it
The list tends to be short and heard daily: why they left, whether they will go home, whether they are grateful. Hearing it tells you what to cross off your own notes.
Looking ahead
What has been easier than you expected?
Why ask it
Asking what has gone well balances a conversation that otherwise catalogs difficulty. It also identifies which local services actually worked, which is useful if you help someone else later.
When has this place felt a little like home?
Why ask it
The moments are small: being greeted by name at the shop, a child dreaming in the new language, recognizing the bus driver. A moment is easier to give than a verdict, and it spares them from having to declare that they are happy here.
What are you working toward over the next year or two?
Why ask it
Forward-looking questions treat someone as a person with plans rather than a history. The answer usually points at where help would matter, such as a licensing exam, a driving test, or a course.
What would you tell a family arriving next week?
Why ask it
It turns the person being helped into the person who knows. The advice is practical and local (which office to visit first, which shop sells the right flour) and worth passing on with their permission.
What would you like to be able to do for other people here?
Why ask it
Being only on the receiving end wears people down. Cooking for a neighbor, interpreting for a newer arrival or coaching a youth team puts someone back in the position of having something to give.
Would you like to meet again, and what should we do next time?
Why ask it
One conversation is an interview, and a second is the start of knowing each other. Let them pick the next thing, whether that is a walk, a meal at their table or help with a particular form.
Is there anything you would like to ask me?
Why ask it
Handing over the last question evens out a conversation that has run one way. It is also how you learn what they were too polite to raise.
Talking With People Who Have Resettled
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
How to Have the Conversation
Do Not Ask Why They Left
The journey and the reasons for it are what many people are asked about most and least want to go over again, often because retelling it is required of them repeatedly in official settings. If they raise it, listen without questions. Otherwise stay on the present and the future. Even the Their story group never asks it outright: it opens by letting the person choose what to tell and what to leave out.
Use a Professional Interpreter for Anything That Matters
Children and other family members should not interpret medical, legal, or financial conversations, both for accuracy and because it puts them in an impossible position. Ask which language and dialect, and arrange a trained interpreter for appointments.
Offer Something Specific, Not Availability
Let me know if you need anything is almost never taken up. I can drive you Tuesday morning, or I can sit with you and read that letter, gets a yes or a no you can act on.
Let Short Answers Stand
A brief answer is often a decision rather than a language problem. Move on instead of rephrasing the same question, and do not treat reluctance as something to work around.
Follow Through on Small Things
People are promised a great deal during resettlement and receive some of it. Doing one concrete thing you said you would do builds more trust than any conversation, and failing to do it costs more than you would expect.
Which Questions for Which Conversation
Take Five or Six, Not All 57
The list is long so that you can choose from it, not so that anyone sits through it. For a first visit, the opening of First meeting and one question from Settling in is plenty. Save the rest for the second and third time you see each other, which is when most of them start to fit.
Volunteers and Sponsors
Settling in and Work and school are your groups. They are built to turn up a job you can do this week: a letter to read, a bus route to explain, a call to the school office. Write down what you hear, check it with the caseworker where it touches permits, benefits or health coverage, and report back to the family either way.
Hosts and Neighbors
You are not a service, so skip the paperwork questions unless you are asked for help. First meeting, Home and family and Looking ahead are the ones for a kitchen table or a shared fence: food, festivals, music, children, what comes next. Answer the same questions yourself so that it runs both ways.
Teachers, Students and Interviewers
If you are preparing a school project, an article or a classroom visit, Their story is your group, and its first two questions come before any other. Say what the interview is for, ask before you photograph as well as before you record, and offer to show what you have written before it goes anywhere. A guest who is speaking to a class should see the pupils' questions in advance and be free to strike any of them.
Questions to Ask About Refugees, and Who Answers Them
The most common questions asked about refugees are general ones: what the word means in law and how it differs from asylum seeker or migrant, how resettlement works where you live, what support a family gets and for how long, whether and when people may work. Those belong to a resettlement agency, a librarian or a teacher, and none of them is on the list above. The answers differ from country to country, so look them up locally before you meet. Then the person in front of you does not have to be a textbook as well as a guest.
Practical Things Worth Knowing About
- Whether a caseworker or resettlement agency is involved, and how to reach them
- Which language and dialect, and whether reading and writing in it is comfortable
- Whether work authorization has been granted, and when it expires
- Whether qualifications from home can be recognized locally, and who evaluates them
- How they get to appointments, school, and work
- Whether school-age children are enrolled and receiving language support
- Whether there is health coverage and a registered doctor or clinic
- Whether the home is warm and in repair, and who the landlord or housing contact is
- Whether the phone and internet are reliable enough for appointments and school messages
- Which community, religious, or language groups they are already connected to
- What documents are outstanding, and which deadlines are approaching
Common Mistakes
Treating Someone as a Story
A request to speak at a church, a school or a fundraiser can put someone back in the worst part of their life for an audience. Invite once, make refusal easy and consequence-free, let them choose the subject, and never record or photograph without explicit permission.
Assuming Poverty or a Lack of Education
Many people arrive with degrees, businesses, and professional careers interrupted by circumstance. Ask what someone did before, and believe the answer.
Asking About Immigration Status in Front of Others
Status has legal consequences and is nobody's business in a group setting. If you need to know for a practical reason, ask privately and explain why.
Putting a Child on the Spot in Class
A pupil from a refugee family is not the class's guest speaker on war or migration. Speak to the parents first, in private, and accept that most children would rather be asked about football than about the border.
Expecting Gratitude
Framing help as something to be thanked for turns a relationship into a debt. Offer what you can offer, accept a plain no, and drop the subject.
Speaking Louder Instead of Simpler
Volume does not help comprehension. Shorter sentences, one idea at a time, written numbers and dates, and a pause for questions all do.