The reason is several serious warnings against the organisation, according to the Directorate of Integration and Diversity (IMDi). – IMDi takes the notifications seriously and follows them up thoroughly. We are in dialogue with the organization and have stopped payment of the second installment pending the completion of the investigations. This is what divisional director Benedicte Barkvoll in IMDi tells news. news has been in contact with several former employees of Bydelsmødre. Some of those news has spoken to have sent notices about the conditions at the organization to both IMDi and Oslo municipality. – I feel an enormous sense of relief A former central employee, who quit this summer, says she is relieved by the news. She wishes to remain anonymous. – I feel an enormous relief. It feels good that someone is finally taking the issue, and us, seriously. I hope this is the start of better times for the employees, she says to news. A former employee of Bydelsmødre Norge says that she is relieved that the funds are being frozen until further notice. Photo: Martin Fønnebø / news news reported in August that employees of Bydelsmødre had submitted several notices against the management, by manager Nasreen Begum. news has so far not been successful in getting a comment from Bodelsmødre on this matter. Labor conflict The Norwegian Welfare Agency in Oslo, which is one of those that supports the organization financially, states in a document that it is a labor conflict internal to the organisation. From notifications that news has seen, it appears that there are several employees who are in conflict with manager Nasreen Begum. HSE work in the organisation, employment contracts, overtime pay, management behavior and workload are among the recurring themes. Nasreen Begum wrote to news in August that: “We can confirm that there have been reports which the management and the board have dealt with. Bodelsmødre Norway considers it positive that the employees speak up and that the reports are taken with the utmost seriousness. We do not want to comment on the details of the notifications, but we feel that Bydelsmødre Norway is well on its way to resolving in a positive way all the matters that have been notified”. Aimed at the immigrant population Bydelsmødre Norge is a non-profit organization based on voluntary work, started by Nasreen Begum in 2016. Volunteer Bydelsmødre groups have so far been established in eight districts of Oslo and in six municipalities. District mothers received a place in the state budget in 2021, where they received one million kroner in support through the scheme “Grants for national resource environments in the field of integration”. It is the Storting that decided to give the District Mothers support. The target group for the scheme is immigrants, their children and the rest of the population. The district mothers entered the state budget after the organization Født Fri and its leader Shabana Rehman lost state support due to what IMDi believed to be clear and systematic violations of the conditions for grants. It is IMDi, the Directorate for Integration and Diversity, which manages the support from the state. IMDi received anonymous notifications at the Bydelsmødrene this summer. IMDi has investigated the notifications, and the investigations are not finished. But now half of this year’s allocation is frozen, pending the completion of the investigations. District mothers are made up of volunteer women, primarily from an ethnic minority background, who have gone through a training program on topics such as family, health and society. “After completing their training, they go out as visible and safe bridge builders between the public sector and their local communities,” it says on the website. The leader and initiator of Bydelsmødre, Nasreen Begum, received the St. Hallvard medal last year, for her work for inclusion. Oslo’s mayor was responsible for presenting the medal.
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Freezes government support to the organization Bydelsmødre – news Norway – Overview of news from various parts of the country
