Crossing Borders

A Student Research and Crossing Borders Collab We are all aware of the increasing impact climate change is having on our lives, from the direct effects of natural disasters and increasing temperatures to the other sometimes more long-lasting effects on health and well-being – but it’s time to recognise that these impacts are felt differently amongst different social groups! Women are at higher risk of suffering from the negative effects of climate change and are therefore more vulnerable to climate change. Knowing how they are vulnerable and what we can do to address it are some important questions that we hope to answer with the help of Crossing Borders in our research project. Our research group is made up of three students from Roskilde University studying International Studies. Jessica has roots in Liberia and Denmark while Ringisai and Raramai have lived experiences in Indonesia, Australia and southern Africa, our combined experiences mean we’ve seen how climate change can affect women differently globally. So, this topic is both important and personal to us as a group. Our research aims to understand ideas of resilience, risk and vulnerability in the context of climate change and gender. We are very excited to collaborate with Crossing Borders as a partner for our research project, not only because they have insights into how organisations respond to gendered climate vulnerability, but also because like us they believe in empowering youth to be the change they want to see in the world. This topic is increasingly relevant as international climate change initiatives become more critical of their actions and have started to look at the additional vulnerabilities that women face to climate change. Organisations such as Crossing Boarders are great case studies because of their emphasis on youth, inclusion and diversity. For more information on the impact of climate change, and what forms of gendered climate action that exist Click here Feel free to contact us if you’d like more information on our project! Ringisai Susara Campbell Jessica Petersen Raramai Campbell

This interactive, online course is divided into three sections, with each segment bringing a unique perception of The Nordic Welfare Model. The first unit introduces the welfare model and reflects on current affairs, while the second part offers a critical analysis of the model from the perception of environmental issues. The third discusses social protection as a crucial element of the Nordic Welfare Model, relating to the example of Finland. Reflecting on current geopolitical affairs, the global pandemic and climate change crises, one naturally thinks about the long-term sustainability of the Nordic Welfare Model. This kind of sustainability is placed in the context of international development, social structures and environmental issues. This course reflects on each Nordic country individually, and by such an analysis, students have the opportunity to understand the model as such, as well as its various aspects and how each country was able to reflect on the crisis. This section allows students to see damages done by the crisis situation but also possible solutions. The second part of the lecture analyses the model from an environmental perspective, drawing from the knowledge of experts like Dr Jason Hickle, who offers a critical analysis of Scandinavian politics in terms of environmental practices. The reader is allowed to broaden their perception of attitudes to sustainability in the Nordics and take a more critical approach, asking, how can they and thus other countries do better? The third section focused on social protection with a specific example from Finland. By understanding and analysing social politics, one can appreciate the Finnish historical narrative of social politics and its impact on Finland’s development. This case study serves as a functional model and a possible solution for various countries concepts. The lecture offers a comprehensive analysis from different pespectives and a fantastic opportunity for students to critically reflect on the Nordic Welfare Model.

Migration and Refugee Aspects of Life is one of many courses offered by Crossing Borders International College in collaboration with the social learning platform CanopyLAB. Through the collaboration Crossing Borders aims to in provide accessible education to all those with an interest in empowering themselves with the knowledge needed to build a peaceful and sustainable world. The courses Crossing Borders International College offers are comprehensive, utilizing the real-life experience of experts in the subject-areas to empower learners in their own individual journeys. The courses offered touch on topics such as the UN’s Sustainability Goals, Inequality, Conflict and Peacemaking, and Climate Activism, amongst many others. In this article the contents and learning experience within the “Migration and Refugee Aspects of Life” will be discussed from my own perspective, as someone who was recently fortunate enough to take part in the course. Over the past few years the global refugee situation has gained increasing attention in a world that has globalized rapidly. Information on the refugee situation comes from many different sources, the media, world governments, UN organizations and, of course, word of mouth. Due to the many different voices speaking about refugees and migrants, there has also been an increased level of debate around the topic and a variety of questions have been raised, such as “what is a refugee?”, “who should be responsible for solving the refugee situation?” and “how can we help the refugee situation?”. With these questions and many others in mind, Crossing Borders developed this course “Migration and Refugee Aspects of Life” with the intention of increasing education on refugee issues through focusing on three main topics: what it means to be a refugee, the current refugee situation and how Covid-19 has impacted it, and what it means to be a young refugee. These topics make up the three units for the course, with learners progressing through units each designed with different focus points that, when combined, provide a comprehensive understanding of the global refugee situation. The course begins with unit one “What does it mean to be a refugee?”, where learners are provided with video lectures and learning materials that provide a solid background on what a refugee is, how the refugee situation has gotten to where it is today historically, what protections refugees are rightfully entitled to and what the life of a refugee is like. Once the learner has passed through the learning materials provided they are able to take a quiz, where they are encouraged to reflect on a series of questions involving the historical background of refugee protection, and the rights that refugees have globally. Unit two begins with a lecture provided by Garba Diallo, the Crossing Borders Founding Director, which is truly a highlight of the course. Garba discusses the current refugee situation with a far-reaching insight and provides brilliant perspectives on the impact that Covid-19 has had on the refugee crisis and the underlying political systems, foreign influences and world order that has caused the current issues within the refugee situation. Garba ends his lecture by encouraging learners to engage their creativity to brainstorm possible solutions for how the world can share the burden of hosting refugees, how countries should integrate refugees, and how we can deal with the deeper traumas that many refugees have to struggle with. The topics Garba raises are followed up with extremely relevant learning materials, and a series of exercises designed to facilitate analysis, debate and investigation from the learner. Unit three is designed to provide insight into the topic of Youth Refugees, and the unique set of issues that a child must deal with while navigating their journey as a refugee. Through a series of videos and follow up materials, the nuances of the life of a young refugee are discussed, enabling the learner to reflect on the different contexts and circumstances that the struggles of a refugee can come in.  This unit takes an important look at the productive ways in which the life of a child refugee can be improved in our own countries, through projects and initiatives that aim to support their journeys. Overall the Migration and Refugees Aspects of Life course offered by Crossing Borders provides a detailed and clear understanding of migrants and refugees in today’s world, through identifying three main topics and providing video materials, lectures, articles and reports that support the learning experience throughout the process. This course is designed for someone who wishes to empower themselves with a more nuanced and well-rounded understanding of the refugee in a modern context, or who maybe wishes to gain new perspectives in their knowledge of the refugee situation. The units are designed to empower learners with historical and statistical data while also encouraging each learner to reflect on the life of a refugee through their individual perspectives, and starts the learner on their own journey of brainstorming and problem solving. Once completing the course, the learner should be left with a strong base understanding of the current refugee situation, as well as a respect for the many different contexts and perspectives that are involved.

Ten Years Later Dubbed Bread, Social Justice, and Freedom: the Arab Spring was a culmination of long-standing anger against bad governance across the region. The spark that ignited the keg happened on December 17, 2010, just one month after the self-immolation of Khalid Said in Egypt who was under the custody of the police. The uprising exploded in different parts of the region and turned into relatively peaceful protests that chased out 30-42 long-time rulers from Tunisia, Egypt, and Yemen. Some rulers were luckier and managed to escape soon enough to keep their lives, while others like Ghaddafi in Libya got lynched by protesters. The revolution was relatively successful in Tunisia, while in Egypt and Bahrain the uprising relapsed back to square one, in Yemen and Syria, it tragically degenerated into protracted bloody civil wars raging even to this day, causing the loss of hundreds of thousands of lives. Now, ten years after these events, we find ourselves wandering: is there a reason to celebrate? Some people say yes, because they believe that the citizens of their own countries are no longer afraid to speak out about civic, social, and sexual freedoms. Other people disagree, arguing that the hopes of the Arab Spring have been dashed. Below are some of the reflections from the region. Abdullah Alsmaeel from Syria, Suaad Alsalahi from Yemen, Rasha Abdel Wahab from Egypt and Khalid Albaih from Sudan share their thoughts about the meaning of the Arab revolutions and the future prospective for their home countries. Photo by Gianluigi Guercia/AFP/Getty Ima 1 Our crime is believing in freedom  By Abdullah Alsmaeel Ten years ago, we participated to the peaceful civilian demonstrations that took place at the beginning of the Syrian revolution, inspired by the Arabic Spring. Our aim in Syria was to restore dignity and freedom for the people of the region. We did it, knowing well that we were putting our lives at risk. Our dream of obtaining freedom and defeating dictatorship gave us enough courage to stand in the face of one of the bloodiest and most oppressive regimes of modern times. As a result, we were forced out of the country. Our sole crime was our passion for freedom, democracy, and social justice. Today, the civil activists who have fled, find themselves surrounded by huge challenges. We are learning to be equipped with skills which enable us to communicate with the international community regarding issues of forced migration, opposition to dictatorships, support to causes of equality, social justice, and democracy in our home countries. All that, with the aim to create pressure and provide a voice to our people to finally see our dream come true. We believe that change will take time and that our movement is a work in progress. As the Syrian playwright, Saadallah Wannous said: “We are condemned to hope”. Arab Autumn in Yemen By Suaad Alsalahi We pinned great hopes on the Arab Spring revolutions. In Yemen we carried ambitions and intentions to change the regime that had ruled for 33 years, along with its errors, corruption, and grievances. What we longed for was finally achieved in 2011 with the departure of President Ali Abdullah Saleh, through a political settlement initiative sponsored by the Arab Gulf states. After that, all our hopes and aspirations were nothing but dispersed. We witnessed only devastation, destruction and corruption that inevitably led to a relentless war, which has been striking us since 2015. The Yemeni Spring has become a nightmare haunting us, with the state institutions collapsing, trapped in chaos, sectarianism, wars, terrorism, poverty and with the population turning into hungry, homeless, and displaced refugees. Hatred and revenge have accumulated so much ever since, that we are now besieged within our own borders. I ask myself if we will celebrate the anniversary of the Arab Spring since in Yemen it has turned into a cold autumn. There is much to celebrate on the 10th anniversary of the Arab Spring By Rasha Abdel Wahab Looking back at the past 10 years, I reckon that for the Egyptians it has been a bumpy ride. First, Mubarak got thrown off the power but then the Muslim Brotherhood took over. At that point, we all wondered whether Egypt would have become a new Algeria, stroke by civil wars, or a closed country, much like Iran. I honestly believe that many people, including myself, insisted on getting rid of the Muslim Brotherhood for the country’s own sake, despite the world might criticize us as undemocratic. As I live most of the time here in Egypt, I can see how the country is building impressive infrastructures, improving healthcare, promoting start-ups and export and developing the education system. Although we have not seen the fruits of these initiatives yet, we can feel the development of the process.  I believe that the country is going in the right direction, although we all need to focus to create a stronger Egypt, with a stable economy, reasonable education system and good healthcare. Nevertheless, there is still a lot to be done and I can’t say to be totally satisfied about Egypt right now. Without any doubt, the Arab revolution was an important step for us, but we still have a long way to make the dreams we shared in 2011 finally come true. We demonstrated for freedom, equality, and a decent livelihood ten years ago, and we still have not achieved it. Now we have something more important – that is stability, developing countryside, safety at night. Egypt will have to undertake a long journey in order to become a democracy in all and for all, and for this we will need more educated people that are able to understand the guidelines of a democracy and the difference between chaos and freedom.  The Arab Spring wind of change is still blowing By @Khalidalbaih

Why did you decide to join the Steering Committee of ALF? Firstly, the invitation to become part of the Committee came from good friends and people that I respect in the field of international development, but also I consider myself personally invested in the cause of ALF since I have lived and worked in the Middle East. The murder of the Swedish Minister Anna Lindh came as a shock and a kind of wake-up call for me. I think that a network such as ALF is needed now that the world, more than ever, is increasingly polarized and radicalized. One of the negative trends of this pandemic is that everything is easily turning either black or white and the extremes are becoming more and more polarized as we witnessed during the last year in the US and other countries. Although I advocate for the perks of digital platforms in times of social distancing, I am not naive about it and I am aware that the continuous use of social media has created frustration and hostility amongst those people that feel isolated and lonely and thus feel the right to ventilate all their dark thoughts on strangers on-line. In this regard, social media are definitively not supporting a peaceful and beneficial dialogue: generally, people tend to be quite aggressive on social platforms and they lose the nuances that are an essential feature of the face to face encounters. We are experiencing challenging times, but therefore it is even more important to have an organization building network in order to reach out to people before they become too radicalized and before they start cornering themselves in crystallized opinions and stereotypes about their “enemy”. There is a lot of work that needs to be done in Denmark too and we certainly need to continue to build and re-establish the ALF Danish network. I hope that we will invite and engage many more members, especially those that are not traditionally part of this type of sector. I am thinking beyond NGOs because if you really want to achieve change in society, you need to reach out to those actors who are more critical and hesitant because they might not see the point in participating in the conversation right away.  It is much easier to agree with those who have the same idea as yourself. Nevertheless, the real work starts when we approach those who do not agree or have different opinions because the differences allow us to expand beyond the comfort zone of organizations that already share the same ideas and goals. We need to open the dialogue at many levels, and we will take a small step towards this goal; we owe it to the rest of the network and to our neighbors in Sweden. In your opinion, what are the major strengths and flaws of ALF? I firmly believe in the importance of networks.  I am also part of other networks such as the Nordic Women Mediators Network. I think that creating networks and relationships, formally and informally, is the only way we, as humans, can evolve and manage the challenges that we face politically, socially, and military. ALF and its network have had a good start particularly in the Middle East and the Mediterranean region. I do not think that there are any flaws in creating networks, on the contrary, it is essential to have people meeting, discussing, building alliances in order to push agendas, raise awareness and help change things. Have you had the chance to work in the Mediterranean area? My experience in the Middle East started as a child living in Cyprus, where my father worked as a UN peacekeeper during the conflict between the Greek and the Turkish Cypriots. I grew up looking at the border, watching people fleeing from their homes and losing their families as I witnessed all the suffering that that caused. Amongst them, there were also refugees from Lebanon fleeing from the civil war, so I was exposed to the consequences of bad leadership in the Middle East at an early age. Then, years later I returned to work in the Middle East. I negotiated agreements with authorities, undertook assessments during conflicts, and opened offices in Lebanon, Palestine, Iraq, Syria, and Jordan. I have a great affection for the region and its people, in fact, I have maintained contact with the region as I am the chair of the Executive Committee of the European Endowment for Democracy which provides grants to organizations and individuals promoting democracy in the European Southern neighboring countries. The concept of dialogue is at the core of ALF, how important is it for the DIPD? What are the differences between the political dialogue of DIPD and the dialogue of ALF? In Denmark, we have a history of cross-party political dialogue and negotiation enacted to achieve what we think is the best for our society and we have refined this culture for over a hundred years. This is the history and the principles that DIPD brings along when engaging internationally in partnerships with developing countries that do not share the same historical path or background of democratic culture. Through peaceful and constructive dialogue, we show that it is possible to discuss with someone with a completely different view. DIPD facilitates dialogue between or within political parties, whereas ALF enables dialogue between civilians, people, and organizations. Nonetheless, the two types of dialogue observe the same principles. This is the whole point of building societies – to listen constructively and peacefully not to fight those with different opinions. In the current times of isolation due to the pandemic, it seems difficult or even impossible to foster dialogue. Would you suggest a strategy to keep the conversation open and active across the Euro-Med region? I do not completely agree with the assumption that it is difficult to foster dialogue during these times. During the lockdown, we were able to reach out to people that otherwise would have been excluded either because they