Leaving your country is always daunting. On paper, Belgium is not always an obvious choice for Ukrainian refugees. Recent arrivals must contend with three different regional languages, overlapping administrations, and varying customs. A new app helps to ease these concerns, giving refugees quick access to French language skills for those residing in Brussels and Wallonia.
Bonjour Belgique, a free app launched at the end of last year by the Belgian chapter of the Bibliothèques Sans Frontières (BSF) NGO, seeks to give Ukrainian refugees quick access to French grammar and vocabulary at the click of a button to help with social integration.
A truly Belgian app
Bonjour Belgique builds off an existing application made for Ukrainian refugees in France. With the Belgian edition, all of the vocabulary and scenarios are adapted for French-speaking regions of Belgium.
The application offers a mix of practical advice, mixed with formal French language education, and quick access vocabulary and phrases to get through ordinary interactions. For example, users learn about using the STIB network, how to access facilities at their local commune, and how to ask for assistance from locals.
The application provides pracrical assistance to Ukrainian refugees on how to register at the commune in Wallonia and Brussels.
“We target a specific audience, which are Ukrainian refugees,” explained Marco Bertolini, learning facilitator at BSF Belgium. “The purpose was really to be as practical as possible and to help them not only to learn the language, but to integrate easier.”
Hurdle to integration
Belgium’s Labour Force Survey, published in June last year, revealed that not having a grasp of one of Belgium’s national languages, Dutch, French or German, was the biggest barrier for non-Belgians in finding a job.
As a result, few Ukrainians have found meaningful employment in Belgium. Last year, statistics from the French-speaking recruitment centre Le Forem showed that just 13.5% of Ukrainians signed up to the centre ultimately found lasting employment in Wallonia. This is largely a result of a lack of language skills.
“This (app) is a bit different because it’s a really practical app to learn French. It’s to help people, Ukrainian refugees in this case, to really be able to find their way in Belgium… It is from Ukrainian to French and all the sounds also have their transcription into Cyrillic,” said Anahita Sabouri, program manager at BSF Belgium.
The application is designed from the ground up to be as relevant as possible for Belgium. French-language audio was recorded by Belgian local comedians, to help expose users to local accents. Bonjour Belgique was developed in collaboration with 140 Ukrainian refugees already living in Belgium and France.
“We have associated the refugees with all steps. At one point, we were introducing the dialogues to them and they were saying it’s way too fast for a beginner. They were right, of course, so we adapted it,” said Bertolini.
Big plans
Feedback for the app has been largely positive. As of December, the application had 538 active users in Belgium, and 274 in Ukraine. The version of the application designed for France has over 1,200 users.
Ukrainian volunteers demo the new application in France. Credit: Bibliothèques sans Frontières
BSF Belgium hopes to build on the success of the Ukrainian version to create other versions for languages spoken in Belgium, as well as to other languages already spoken by asylum seekers in Belgium. The content would again be changed to include the most relative vocabulary and resources for the target group.
The application is not intended to be a replacement for French language schools, but rather an accompaniment which can help provide a boost to learning experience, as well as an opportunity to learn continuously while inside the country.
“We had very nice comments from Ukrainian people who tell us that it’s very useful for them to have this app to start and to complement French language lessons. If you have some 5-10 minutes, you want to learn a few words, it’s very practical,” Sabouri noted.
In Belgium, the Bonjour Belgique and Bonjour France projects are supported by BSF’s partners, notably the King Baudouin Foundation, as well as with the Red Cross in France. There is interest from the charity’s partners in funding various spin-off versions of the app, including for helping highly-skilled Ukrainians in technical fields.
Development through reading
Aside from the application, BSF Belgium invests heavily into supporting Ukrainian refugee children across the country. The charity has notably established a series of micro-libraries in refugee reception centres across the country to support young children. The group also runs several literacy and teaching programs.
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In an interview with The Brussels Times in November 2022, the Director of BSF Belgium, Dimitri Verboomen, stressed the importance of the NGO’s work in Belgium. The goal of the BSF Belgium is to help children integrate and to promote reading as an integral part of youth development.
“Here in Belgium and in France, we create libraries in spaces where Ukrainians live so that they actually have access to books, but also a place of normality. It’s really important that they can first have access to their own culture but also can start learning French or Dutch and integrate into Belgian society,” Verboomen said.
The Bonjour Belgique application can be accessed for free through the Kajou platform, available on both Google Play Store and the IOS store.
