Find below the report about the 'Welcome Refugee' project hosted by our Member Organisation Les Faucons Rouges.
'Welcome Refugees'
Our Youth Movement is active through a number of activities and projects; in this context, the international camp in 2020 would be the main highlight of the season. It enables young people to acquire and develop skills that will be useful to them throughout their lives.
For a large number of children and young people, the camp means still today the only holiday they will have. Among the Faucons Rouges, children and young people from a working class environment have the opportunity to participate in the camps through internal solidarity and/or of lucrative activities during the year. The camp is also a welcoming place for particularly vulnerable children: children with disabilities, children removed from their family or placed in institutions, children of Refugee centres and illegal immigrants. Therefore the camp promotes social cohesion and privileges human relations in a spirit of cooperation favouring the inclusion of each child.
The international camp also has complementary assets: meetings and exchanges with young people from other countries whose mother tongue is not necessarily French. In July 2019, around 15 young people took part in the Döbriach International Camp in Austria, which was called "Welcome Refugees". This camp required a lot of research, investments and exchanges before the departure:
- The Belgian delegation remained in contact for many months with the German and Austrian delegations. These partners are also members of the IFM-SEI.
- The young people experienced an initial awareness phase early 2018 through reflection workshops following the broadcast of the clip "MENA of Amnesty International".
- A meeting with young refugees of their age took place at the Fédasil centre (refugee and migrant centre) in Pondrôme allowed a second sensitisation animated with specific games from each country.
- The young people also participated in discovering in the underground of the citadel of Namur, in "a tunnel" created by Solidaris and the Memory Territories during Solidarity Activities in Namur, a tunnel which traces the way of migrants.
The objectives of this camp were numerous and varied:
- To meet other young Europeans who are sensitive to the issue of migrants.
- Discuss, organize debates on the situation of migrants and more particularly on unaccompanied foreign minors.
- Create utopian slogans on how we would like to welcome migrants.
- Organize a manifestation at the end of the project to expose our thoughts to other youngsters.
- Design and create badges that young people could wear having a slogan that summarizes our project.
Seven sessions were planned for this project to succeed:
- For the first part, it seemed important to all of us to discover each other. For this activity, we gathered in the village (the campsite is divided into villages, our village was composed of our three delegations). Each delegation presented itself in an original way (music, stage ...). Then, presentation games were organized by the delegations. In order to deal with the difficulties of languages, the delegations had planned, before the trip, to bring pictograms (language facilitators: words of everyday life, expressions or vocabulary specific to our theme).
- In order to create a photo / video clip after our return from the camp, we prepared interviews. We were also interested in the handling audio equipment (sound recording), camera and by framing of videos.
- Before the trip, based on a series of non-exhaustive questions, youngsters made inquiries about information on non-accompanied minor migrants. Who is a non-accompanied minor migrant? What are the rights of non-accompanied minor migrants? What is the difference between a non- accompanied minor migrants and adult migrant? How are they received in my country? To carry out this activity, and for each young person to speak, the group was divided into three subgroups mixing the three delegations. For each sub-group, the questions and answers were written on flipchart paper before gathering all realised work together.
- For that workshop, and to secure a better participation of all, the delegations were again mixed. This activity required creativity because it was a question of creating a model for the reception of non-accompanied minor migrants.
- In order to have a follow-up and a trace of the project, a logo has been imagined and created. It was intended to be used during the manifestation, the video recording...
- During the preparation of the manifestation the way to walk was planned as also the strategic places. For this one, the synthesis of the flipchart papers that made at the end of each workshop would be presented to highlight the most important ideas. Also the start of creation of badges was part of it.
Here are some slogans imagined by young people:
- Standardized human migration policy for the EU
- Alle kinder haben rechte
- Some rights for everyone
- Refugees = / item. Refugees = humans. Humans have rights
- Equality for citizens and refugees
- Welcome UMR
And to continue the project:
The young participants of the International camp met again at the Solidarity Action in Namur during the month of August. They of course went to the exhibition "The end of the tunnel" ... The question of migrants is shaking up and dividing our society more than ever. That's why young people's reflections are so important to us ...
To feed the reflections of the 3 delegations, a digital platform has been set up. At present, it has videos and texts in French, English and German. This platform is far from being fixed since each delegation has the opportunity to read the documents posted but also to add new ones (according to a live experience, actual news, or request ...). This platform could also be open to other IFM-SEI member organizations that are showing interest in the project.
The exhibition "The end of the tunnel" is scheduled take place at Fort de Huy during the first half of 2020. A new opportunity to have more reflections, to meet ... The Belgian delegation will not fail to inform other delegations of this initiative as well as about the dates.
During the summer of 2020, the three delegations will meet together in Common Ground (England) to continue this learning process and enrich our reflections, find other leads and ways, other actions ... taking into account the solidarity principles of our Movement.
Do you want us to feature your organisation's activities? Let us know at comms@ifm-sei.org!
Also check out our last Members Monday post about the VI ESPLAC ENVIRONMENTAL DAYS.
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