Au Pinoy

Au Pinoy #3 will be published Sunday August 15th, 2010 in Oslo and Copenhagen. More information will follow!

/Raymond M. Kristiansen

Hello all,

* KIT/FOA bid for Au Pair information service
Before the publication of Au Pinoy in October, we should know the result of the selection of group to be responsible for the upcoming Au Pair information service in Denmark. KIT/FOA and the network where FOA is secretary has a strong bid, and I do expect them to win the bid for the contract (4 year contract; 1 million kr for each year), but we will have to wait for the result.

If KIT/FOA wins the bid, we are told that they will begin the services for the au pairs already from November 1st.

* No news from the embassy re: bi-lateral negotiations
We have not heard any news from the Filipino embassy in Oslo re: the bi-lateral negotiations with Norway regarding an exception to the au-pair ban.

To re-iterate: According to our sources, the Filipino government only has two conditions for lifting the ban: Life insurance, and repatriation in case of death. We still wait for a confirmation of this from the embassy, and we also are waiting for signals from the Norwegian side about their view on these conditions.

Once the Norwegian parliamentary elections are over (i.e. after Sept 14th), I am sure that things will speed up, especially if the current government is still in place. Of course, we might get very different political signals if there is a change to a center-right government.

* The Catholic church in Norway and the au pair situation
The last week, we have noticed a heightened interest among organizations affiliated with the Catholic church in Norway regarding the au pair situation. I was invited to speak at two different church meetings, and the response was pretty good. We had some interesting discussions about what could be done now. A consensus result was that ‘We need to inform the au pairs more’. I don’t have specifics of how many of the Filipino au pairs are attending masses in the Catholic church, but they are quite a big %.

* Filipino Working Group in Norway – upcoming au pair conference in Oslo in November
On saturday night I attended a meeting with members of a network called “Filipino Working Group”, hosted by Jean Langerud. Even though Au Pinoy takes care not to affiliate ourselves too strongly with specific organizations, we are interested in talking with all. During the meeting, where Judy Jover from Babaylan Denmark also was present, we discussed among other things the need for a conference on au pair situation. This conference I was later told is confirmed to take place on November 20th in Oslo. We will push for this conference being as including as possible, where as many organizations as possible feel they can be present and contribute.

* Next issue of Au Pinoy
Next issue of Au Pinoy will be published October 4th, and this will then be our Oct/Nov issue. Also, we are going from being a purely Denmark-focused magazine to a magazine aimed at Filipino au pairs in Denmark as well as Norway. We aim for distribution in the following cities: Copenhagen, Odense, Århus, Oslo, Bergen, Stavanger.

We have recently had a fortunate growth in members of the editorial board, but all of these have been Norway-based. If anyone from Denmark would like to help us with articles, proof-reading or layout, please contact me.

The next issue of Au Pinoy will be slightly bigger in terms of pages, and we will have a stronger focus on cultural / pragmatic issues. We aim for a holistic approach to the area of Filipino au pairs, not just talking for instance about the political issues.

* The future of Au Pinoy
When we started Au Pinoy this spring, our goal was to reach out to those au pairs who are not already affiliated with organizations and thus are more vulnerable in case of crisis. In Denmark, our most important role with the coming issue is to promote the upcoming au pair information service. In Norway, we are also slowly pushing for a similar government-funded information service for au pairs.

I personally have never been of the opinion that ‘there will always be a need for Au Pinoy’. With our upcoming third issue, we are aiming broadly, and based on feedback from au pairs themselves we will consider the future of the magazine.

* This mailing list
If you know anyone who might be interested in this mailing list, please refer them to this page: http://lists.au-pinoy.net/listinfo.cgi/aupinoynews-au-pinoy.net

Best regards,

Raymond M. Kristiansen
Editor, Au Pinoy
raymond@au-pinoy.net / +47 40295447

Au Pinoy now have our own mailing list for news dispatches and discussions related to the au pair situation in Norway/Denmark. The mailing list has a closed archive of messages only visible to list members, but all the information on that list is to be considered public.

You can subscribe to the mailing list here.

Update: The links do not work anymore since the Philippines Embassy in Norway have changed their website.

As this document shows, there is a growing closeness in the relationship between the Philippines and Norway. Just a few statistics

* Today, Norwegian ship owners employ approx 35.000 Filipino seafarers
* Currently, there are about 900 licensed Filipino nurses in Norway
* There are about 10.000 Filipinos living in Norway, having made Norway their new home.

And, as we know, there are now at any time about 2.000 Filipino au pairs in Norway. Many of these au pairs would like to further their education or career in Norway after their au pair period has ended.

Q: What would happen to the options for Filipinos wanting to make a new future for themselves in Norway if the au pair system is shut down?

By the way, this is a very interesting list of facts about the Philippines and Norway (also from the Filipino embassy in Oslo)

One of the topics that came up this morning during the press conference where the FAFO report was released was the question of the Norwegian diplomatic relationship with the Philippines. As you know, there is currently a ban on travelling abroad as an au pair in the Philippines. This ban has been in effect since 1998, but has never been respected by Norway, which issues au pair visas through its embassy in Manila. Actually, Norway also issues au pair visas for Filipino citizens wanting to be au pairs in Denmark.

The issue of the corruption at the airport in the Philippines where the prospective au pair has to bribe themselves out of the country has been discussed heavily in Norway, mostly in articles in the newspaper Dagsavisen, which pushes for a discontinuation of the au pair system.

The state secretary Libe Rieber-Mohn talked this morning about the on-going negotiations between Norway and The Philippines where the goal is to establish a bi-lateral agreement between these two countries. One of the comments she gave was that this work is difficult because we are getting different signals from The Philippines on what they are actually interested in. She also said that this work will continue this autumn, and that if no agreement is made, it is a chance that Norway will have to follow the Wien convention and respect the Filipino law regarding the ban of au pairs.

I have contacted the ministry today and asked for a confirmation on the specifics of this. Will Norway with certainty adher to the Wien convention and suddenly start respecting Filipino law, thus taking the route of Sweden and not issuing au pair visas to Filipino citizens living in The Philippines? Or is this only seen as one of the options after a failure to secure a bi-lateral agreement?

Let us be realistic: There is little chance for a bi-lateral agreement between Norway and The Philippines. I highly doubt that the politicians in The Philippines will realize that their ban is not working. Also, if there is to be some form of bi-lateral agreement, I am pretty sure that The Philippines will be looking for tax revenue from the au pairs, meaning that the au pairs will need a substantially higher income in Norway. This again will push for a re-definition of the au pair stay in Norway as work, which is in itself an explosive political issue in Norway.

Is there any hope for a continuation of the au pair system as it is today? There are a few scenarios which we must consider.

The first one is the question of who is in the government. If the current centre-left government stays in power after the parliamentary election in September, it is very likely that we will move towards a stop of Filipina au pairs in Norway. Norway will not manage to secure the bi-lateral agreement (but I would be extremely happy if I am proved wrong), and the political climate will dictate that the issue of the Filipina au pairs is “fixed”. If there, on the other hand, is a change in government, then Norway may go the route of Denmark which is to let things be as they are now, with maybe an information centre for au pairs being established.

Then there is the question of the political debate the coming months. There are a few conflicting issues here, one of them being the different definitions of the au pair stay in Norway. Is the au pair really here as a cheap maid, or is this an issue of cultural exchange? Are the au pairs victims, or independent women and men who seek a better future or simply some international experiences? If we define the au pair-contract as a work contract, how does this fit into the larger picture of work immigration in Norway? One of the main points of the FAFO report is that we should re-define the au pair contract from ‘cultural exchange’ to ‘work’, which is also something that this Norwegian article from today focuses on.

What do you think? Is there any opportunity for a bi-lateral agreement between the Philippines and Norway regarding the au pairs? If there is no such agreement, will Norway then decide to stop issuing au pair visas to Filipino citizens applying for it while in the Philippines?

The FAFO report is now on-line, and you can read it here.

The report/evaluation of the Norwegian au pair scheme does not recommend that the au pair scheme is discontinued, but suggests three different models:

Alternative A: Redesign of the current scheme.
Alternative B: A Youth Mobility Scheme with opportunities for au pairing, working and studying in Norway for persons between 18 and 30 years of age during a period of 2 years.
Alternative C: An additional scheme for migrant domestic workers.

You can read more in the report, which is in pdf-format.

We are now back from our summer vacation. During the summer, we have looked at our experiences from the two issues we have had of Au Pinoy so far, and tried to see how we might do this better in the future.

There will most likely be no August issue of Au Pinoy after all, but we will publish an issue for September instead. This might also be the last issue of Au Pinoy, depending on our assessment of the actual need for a magazine like this.

Since the editor of Au Pinoy, Raymond M. Kristiansen, have moved to Norway as well as one more member of the editorial board (Hazel Tanatan), we might want to make Au Pinoy Scandinavian. In this case, this means Norwegian/Danish.

The long-awaited FAFO report about the Au Pair system in Norway will be made public tomorrow, August 20th, at an event at FAFO. We at Au Pinoy will of course be there and give you the information from the meeting.

You can expect the first part of our coverage of this meeting tomorrow, so please check back then.

As we explained in our first issue, Au Pinoy was born out of a discussion during a party in April between four people. There is no organization behind this free publication.

Au Pinoy makes no claim to be a unique magazine. However, our hope is that some of the discussions from Au Pinoy – both in the magazine, website as well as during personal conversations with people – can help others to also see the need for new connections, a more holistic approach to in this case the situation for the Filipino au pairs in Denmark.

Here are a few upcoming articles we are planning apart from our continued focus on the future of the au pair system in Denmark and elsewhere:

Interview with the instructor behind ‘Hush Hush Little Baby’, the theatre play that showed in Copenhagen this early spring.
Interview with Lakambini Sitoy, the renowned Filipino author that is currently based in Denmark.
Interview with people from Babaylan, FAD, Corbel Team and others dealing with au pair issues.

We also plan to do a review of phone services as well as other relevant services any au pair would want to use.

We need your help to make these articles more engaging. If you are interested in helping out, you can contact me at raymond@au-pinoy.net.

Finally, I want to apologize for the down-time on our website www.au-pinoy.net during May. Our server has been repeatedly attacked by malware/trojan virus, and we are still working on it.

Volleyball @ Klampenborg, May 16 2009
by Hazel Tanatan

It was Saturday, May 16 when the two teams, The Abegales and The Christensen Slashers showed-off their tossing and spiking muscles at the Klampenborg Beach. That was the first time that I have been involved with a “sports event” here in Copenhagen and I couldn’t contain my excitement and cheers for both teams. It was a very nice gathering of young Filipinos, together with their half-Filipino and non-Filipino friends.

Volleyball! I really don’t know how to hit the ball myself, that’s why I ended up as a scorer / cheerer! But it was really fun looking at the players enjoying the game under the pouring rain at Klampenborg. It seemed easy, actually. Weather was just a word in the dictionary—no matter how freezing it was that afternoon, the game just went on. And plus, what was really striking was that, both teams had their own “Group Identity”, wearing their fancy uniform and colors. I really liked that whole rainy day of watching the game and enjoying the moment with new friends and “barkada”.
I really enjoyed the idea of a Filipino Summer bonding. You know, “barbecue-ing”, talking, eating, bonding with new friends, playing and sports, picture-taking. I should say, you’ll never get lost in a Philippine Party.

I couldn’t recall all the complete names of both teams’ players, but I would like to extend my gratitude to The Christensen Slashers and The Abegales. To name a few,

CHRISTENSEN SLASHERS

1. Jane Munk Christensen
2. Mary Ann Sabellano
3. Angie Goloso
4. Cyllie Velasco
5. Jeawel Espinosa
6. Nena Cabatana
7. Mary Grace
8. Princess Marie
9. Ginema
10. Tisay

THE ABEGALES

1. Nezy
2.Karen
3.Tintin
4.Hazel Grace
5.Bonj
6.Renren
7.Adora
8.Jasmin
9.Chloe

And MANY BIG THANKS to the friends who helped prepare the food and the beach volleyball court. Thanks to the dearest friends who dropped by to see us at Klampenborg (you know who you are!) and it wouldn’t be that fun without you. THANK YOU!

For a volleyball match, please contact Nezy @ +45 53236009 nezy_peace@yahoo.com or Hazel Grace @ +45 50304158 shareyourblessing@yahoo.com.

***
Remember that we continue playing volleyball this summer! Read page 3 for details.

By Raymond M. Kristiansen

Genevieve Arroyo is a graduate student who did research on the au pair program for her dissertation while staying in The Netherlands.

She has written a article which first was published in the Munting Nayon News Magazine (The Netherlands), and which has been re-printed on filipinaaupair.net).

Her article is an interesting look deeper into the issue of the au pair ban in the Philippines and includes a letter from the International Au Pair Association (IAPA) sent to the Department of Foreign Affairs in Manila. The letter is from 2007, but there has unfortunately been not much further progress in this area.

If the ban was lifted, one very visible effect would be that there would be no more blackmailing of au pairs at Filipino airports!

Her article is well worth reading. Read it at:

http://delicious.com/aupinoy/arroyo