The engagement with refugees from Burma as part of the SICRIE project has heightened our awareness of the many ethnic and religious interface challenges involved in resettlement within a European context. 

The first group of about fifty Chin refugees from Burma arrived in the Czech Republic in 2008. They underwent a six- month Czech language and integration training provided under the auspices of the Czech Ministry of Interior. After that each family (a total of nine families) were resettled in their new home locations at different municipalities across the Czech Republic. The second group of about forty refugees (8 families) from Burma arrived in August/September 2010 and underwent a similar 6-month language training and integration program and after that the families also were resettled to different municipalities across the Czech Republic. In the second group most of the refugees were Chin with a few being also of Karen and Kachin ethnicity. Almost all of them were Baptist believers (in the first group all were Baptists). Although the Interior Ministry program provided the refugees with all the basic material and social support, they soon discovered that the refugees were deeply unhappy in regard to their religious life.  Considering the highly secularized context of the Czech public life the Ministry of Interior was not aware that religious affiliation and communal religious practice may play an important role in the life of the refugees.

A fact finding and contact establishing visit was held from 24^th to 27^th of May 2011 near Brno. The two-day gathering yielded important information about various aspects of the Chin refugee life. The participants learned about some of the difficulties arising from the financial and institutional limitations of the government Integration Program and, perhaps even more importantly, the participants learned about the resoluteness of the Chin refugee community in overcoming obstacles separating them from a whole community life.

Some of the conclusions we draw from our experience to date are:

• It seems that up until the arrival of the first group of refugees from Burma the Czech Government was unaware of their Christian and Baptist religious identity and the particular cultural context they were coming from.  Therefore they were not able to ask for exert advice in the process of drawing their refugee resettlement program and the approach lacked flexiblity in this area. This situation in fact may be in part a result of insufficient information provided to the Czech side by the UN authorities or simply a lack of appreciation of the significance of religious identity within secular societies and institutions.
• The refugees coming from rural areas, having little or no schooling and having no experience with human and civil rights issues could not properly communicate their needs for having a proper religious life which also include religious fellowship and community life. The particularities of their spiritual needs as Baptists were unknown both to the government and to the relevant NGO. The advice the SICRIE group was able to provide seem to have brought certain improvement as there seems to be less misunderstanding between the refugees and the NGO which is assisting the refugees in their dealings with various government agencies.
• Ethnic and political and cultural sensitivities still make some aspects of relationships difficult. There are a range of ethnic groups in Burma and in exile. Some refugees are afraid (because of their relatives still living in Burma) of being seen as supporting or being part of groups which the government of Burma regards as pro-opposition. Furthermore, sometimes difficulties may arise also because of the patriarchal traditions clashing with the fact that many of those seeking to facilitate the refugees may be female.
• The local Czech municipalities which have accepted the refugee families seem to be providing them with adequate support and are tolerance-minded and motivated people. However the distribution of the refugee families over a very large geographical area makes it difficult for the local municipalities to organize any events for the whole refugee community from Burma, without external financial assistance.
• The refugees expressed the wish to be visited by a Baptist pastor understanding their refugee experience. They also expressed their need to participate in Baptist Communion once a month, if possible. They said that they would appreciate if a visiting pastor could provide this service to them.  The SICRIE group have a been able to make contact with a Baptist Pastor from Burma resettled in Norway who will visit the group later this year.
• The refugees and the NGO said that they would appreciate if the SICRIE team would help to communicate, sensitively, their problems and constructive experiences to the government institutions, international organizations and the larger public. They hope that their experiences can help to improve refugee integration process in other countries.

The SICRIE project has taken us into an area we had not anticipated but has left us empowered to make the following observations and recommendations in regard to addressing the issues that arise on the cultural and religious interface of resettlement of refugees within a European context:

1. It could be advisable for the national government agencies in charge of refugee integration in their countries to request from the UN specific information about religious affiliation, ethnic and cultural context of the refugees before they come. For people coming from practicing religious communities this identity element should be moved higher up in the priority list when designing an integration program for them (secular authorities should not automatically presume that religious affiliation is only nominal). Local representatives of the relevant faith community should be consulted while planning the integration program. 
2. It seems that for better integration and improved inter-community relations there should be a built-in flexibility for various groups of refugees. One size fits all approach seem to not be advisable as it can lead to increased adaptation stress, frustrations on the refugee side and also to mutual resentment between the local inhabitants and the marginal refugee group.
3.  Local religious communities should be involved in advising the authorities and NGOs in the practicalities of the religious life of refugees after their arrival in the host country.
4. Local religious communities can help in mediating some aspects of relationships with the refugees.  For example, provide male presence in situations where patriarchal traditions make initiative from female activists a complicated matter.
5. Local religious communities and international religious bodies can help with raising moral, spiritual and financial support for particular events and projects facilitating the integration of refugees in their new home countries.
6. Local religious communities can help with pastoral care for newly placed refugees.
7. Although financial and other logistic considerations may limit such opportunities, the government agencies planning the distribution of the refugee families to particular municipalities should be advised to move them in more compact clusters, spreading them over not so large territories, if possible. This would potentially meet two objectives: it would both force the families to learn the local language and to integrate in the local society while also allowing them to live out important aspects of the cultural and religious life of their own community.  This recommendation seems to be of particular relevance considering the highly secularized context of much of European society.