What’s at stake when you enter a state housing system as an asylum seeker? In The Netherlands, there is a roof over your head, food on the table, and in this Middelburg location, a spacious game room and lounge where you can watch TV, play video games or share coffee with a friend. There is safety and even comfort here. So why are so many of the people living inside facing mental health crises?––of depression and even suicide.

MotM has reported from the Middelburg, Netherlands COA housing camp over the course of 2021 with great esteem for its operations. We have walked away every time with a sense of warmth, solidarity and total transparency from the people inside working to keep the complex going, in spite of paralyzing limitations. There are missing mental health resources, and that’s what we talk about in this episode today. It was our last report from Middelburg in 2021, recorded in early November 2021.

Hear MotM’s Lead Correspondent, Pamela Kerpius, in conversation with Abraham (Nigeria), Abdul Mohammed Ali (Somalia), Anas (Ghana) and Mohammed (Syria) in this episode, the last of the year and our most urgent to date.

About Open Encounters
After crossing continents, countries, the Sahara desert and the Mediterranean, now they are on the next journey, of settling their lives in Italy, and beyond.

From humanitarian storytelling publication Migrants of the Mediterranean, the Open Encounters podcast brings light to the migrant flow in Italy and the EU in human terms. Migration continues to dominate the headlines in Europe, the US and around the world, but still so often only in political terms. Here, we change that.

Get to know the individuals themselves in one-on-one conversations with host and founder of Migrants of the Mediterranean, Pamela Kerpius.