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OU on the BBC: Meet The Immigrants - About the series

Updated Tuesday, 8th April 2008

Meet the Immigrants is a new, six-part, observational documentary series for BBC One, co-produced by the Open University, which looks at the lives of several members of the new wave of inward migration into the UK.

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The series has been made by the same unit that makes BBC One’s Skint. Meet The Immigrants applies the Skint formula to the latest ‘hot’ political issue – immigration. The series will take the audience into areas seldom explored, showing lives normally only stereotyped. We see why they come, what they do, how they survive.

Narrated by David Morrissey, the series shows all sides of the real experiences of migrants in the 21^st Century United Kingdom and the challenges they face in arriving and surviving here. Some have families back home, and some have families in the UK - regardless of their location, these families need support.

Meet the Immigrants also reflects the ongoing national debate on Immigration and explores the common themes - industrious newcomers performing unskilled jobs that Britons won’t do or opportunists in search of an easy life, attracted by the UK’s flexible laws and systems.

Meet the Immigrants promises to take you beyond the headlines and shows you life from the perspective of the immigrant.

Dr Nicola Yeates, academic adviser for the series and senior lecturer in social policy with the Open University, said: “This series reflects the Open University’s commitment to raising understanding of key issues in contemporary British society, including awareness of its rich social and cultural fabric and the many contributions that immigrants make to the British economy.

“Immigration is a key political and media subject and Meet the Immigrants introduces the lived reality of immigrating to Britain. It adds welcome human faces into what are often abstract, polemical and politicised debates.

“There are many unfortunate myths and assumptions that have grown up around the causes and consequences of immigration and this intelligent and highly watchable series will play an important role in informing viewers about one of the most important social and policy issues of our times.”