Blog

Just over one month ago the Crossing Borders community came together to celebrate how far we have come in 20 years. Since 1999 our family has continued to expand, and it was a true joy to bring some 250+ family members from all over the world together under Cinemateket’s roof for an extended night of storytelling, food sharing, and revelry. The event was a true celebration of a borderless world in miniature. Notable speakers such as Sara Omar, Jacob Holdt, and H.E. Zindzi Mandela shared stories of past struggles and future dreams. The mood was festive but there were also persistent reminders of how far we have yet to go and why the work of Crossing Borders is so important. Ambassador Mandela put it aptly with her opening words, “welcome comrades, welcome friends.” In noting that we all share this world, she reminded us that we must push forward together as one to create a more open, inclusive and welcoming world were our friendships can freely blossom. Mpho Ludidi, Khalid Albaih, and Sara Rahmeh were just a few who took part in  the two part our Voices of the World feature where artists and activists shared their ongoing efforts to break down borders and promote a more inclusive global society. With our bellies in mind, a number of attendees and CB staff had worked up a sweat in their respective kitchens prior to the event. A decadent tasting buffet with homemade savory dishes and sweet desserts from every corner of the world filled everyone’s stomachs and hearts. It speaks to the quality of the cooking that nary a crumb was left at the close of the night. In addition to the time put in by CB volunteers and staff, the event could not have gone as well as it did without the generous contributions from sponsors: Stalks and Roots, Fiolblomster, Kultorvets Blomster, Impact Roasters, and Nordhavn Coffee Roasters. We at Crossing Borders are eternally grateful for all the positive energy from the event and have used it to propel us further. Since the event, we have continued our mission. Just last week, staff visited Berlin as part of a Dialogue in Adult Education, we hosted a multiplier event targeted at entrepreneurial migrants and refugees in Ubuntu House, and staff hosted a training of trainers for youth engagement in northern Fyn which drew practicioners from four European countries. The list could go on and on. Looking forward, we are proud to announce the relocation of our Global Studies højskole program to Nordfyns Højskole and the opening of shorter programs in northeastern Sjælland. We have come so far in 20 years, but this is not a path with an end. This is a mission where the reward comes from the journey, not from reaching an end point. We will not succeed without the continued support of our friends and family. Thank you and we look forward to seeing everyone again!

Jacob Holdt made the Food for Thought event an unforgettable experience, not only for those guests who already know him, but mostly for those who heard him for the first time. His charismatic personality and life experiences were almost impossible to imagine — he left the audience impressed, inspired and empowered. It almost felt as if one evening was not enough to get to hear all that Jacob has to say. During the evening, the author of The American Pictures, and the newly published book “Om at sige ja”, presented some of the chapters designed for the audience to understand what milestones or better, coincidences shaped his life decisions, personal opinions and beliefs from early childhood to where is he today. He started off by showing pictures of his family and family house in Fåborg  (the village where his spent the most of his childhood). As the son of the pastor at Grundtvig´s Church, expectations of who he should become were set. However, after being thrown out of high school, his next rebellious moves opened the doors in a world outside of Denmark. In 1970, Jacob travelled to Canada to work on a farm and from there he wanted to travel to South America to support the government of Salvador Allende after he was elected president of Chile in September 1970. However, he never made it – he arrived with only 40 dollars, fascinated and shocked by the social differences he encountered in the US. Holdt stayed in the USA for more then five years, crossing the country by hitchhiking over 100,000 miles and taking thousands of photographs. During these years Jacob started working with civil rights issues. He spent years protesting the Vietnam War and conditions in the Third World. He talked about how these events shaped his perspective on the issue of human rights and democracy and how it evolved over the years. He shared the interesting and adventurous part of his journey with us through the chapter love amongst the oppressed – in spite of all and showed photographs that presented aspects of black culture rather than aspects of oppression. The chapter Ghetto Love revealed pictures and story behind Jacob´s first marriage. A particularly interesting picture featured Jacob and Annie holding the South African consul´s baby during their wedding ceremony. Another fascinating story Jacob shared with us took place in 1977, when his book was published and the KGB revealed to him that it was their intention to use it in their campaign against President Carter in an effort to demonstrate that human rights were violated as much in America as Russia. Holdt hired his lawyer, Søren B. Henriksen, to stop his own book across the world except for in Germany, Holland and Scandinavia where they had already signed contracts with his Danish publisher; he managed to stop it and until the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991, Jacob did not release the book again. Jacob told us of his escape behind the Iron Curtain to Poland, experiencing and seeing the real face of communism in everyday life and meeting people until he met his current wife and took her on an adventurous journey around the world! Due to him losing most of his expected income from his book, Jacob could not fulfil his desire of financing a hospital but his hard work, activism and efforts throughout the years enabled him to build a nursing school for the Namibian resistance group SWAPO in Angola. Among all others stories, photographs and thoughts Jacob shared with us with such a passion, he taught me one fundamental thing – if we want to change the world or at least play a small part in influencing it positively, we need to find the “freedom to be able to say yes; the freedom to throw yourself into the arms of every single person you meet.”

HackYourFuture In my experience, charities are often seen as far removed from innovation, as fusty organisations preoccupied with the ills of society, putting a damper on the exciting progress being made in other sectors. Hack Your Future Copenhagen and its bright-eyed, dapperly dressed Managing Director Christopher don’t fit this stereotype at all. Instead, as I follow him down the all-white, minimalist corridors lit by the morning sun, Chris embodies the energy of the project he leads, one that teaches refugees, asylum seekers and marginalised groups programming skills in Javascript and front and back end development. At the weekly gathering of HYF’s students (a group from migrant backgrounds including a significant number of refugees and asylum-seekers), Chris leads a stand-up, replicating what many small businesses now do to ensure everyone in a team is on message. HYF’s version, however, struck a different tone. News that one student was granted asylum in Denmark marked the end of the stand-up after another was presented with a Raspberry Pi — a credit-card sized computer which enables people to explore computing and learn coding languages — as a prize for good effort. This is certainly indicative of the blend of business and charity seen at HYF, where migrants aren’t merely given a skill, but introduced to the fresh face of modern, European business culture. Describing his rapid introduction to HYF as a friend of the manager of the Amsterdam branch, Chris says “So I was like ok cool. I’ve got everything, the laptops, students and was like, do you wanna take over now? And they said, Chris, you’re the manager of Copenhagen now!” This sort of speed of development is indicative of a wider trend, where over 15 refugee coding schools have sprung up over the last few years across Europe and North America. Dr Rasmus Jones, a recent optical communication PHD graduate whose named is fantastically representative of the international world he inhabits, has been teaching at HYF in his spare time for the last three years. With obvious passion he speaks about the future potential of programming to influence society, and — at least to my luddite ears — he has a knack for making the technologically complex sound simple. “Let’s try to explain, say, with a hammer and a nail. You have to put two beams together. I got shown a hammer by my dad at some point. Let’s say I’m 22 and have never seen a hammer or a nail. They put a hammer and a nail in front of me, but to me these are abstract things. If they teach programming in school, if my dad showed me how to write a little program when I was five, then when I’m 22 I have different tools. We are humans in an evolutionary process, we learn from experience and exposure.” In light of this, Rasmus explains that if he taught me coding for only a few hours, the random code I see on his computer screen would begin to make vague sense. It isn’t only that we fundamentally adapt to technology in such a manner but that educated migrant groups are suited to fulfilling such roles. “It’s a growing job market. Everyone needs an app and people need those people. On the other side they have a fairly good background because they had a similar education back home, but they don’t have this stamp from society”. Getting their qualifications recognised in host societies is difficult for migrants and, contrary to much of public opinion, many of them are highly educated. Present among those I spoke to at HYF were a former financial analyst, a computer science student from Pakistan and a father of two who’d come over to study in Sweden after completing a Computer Network Engineering BA in Ghana. However, coding represents an opportunity for them to use their previous experience to learn a concrete skill, bypassing the need to gain recognition for past qualifications in a labour market that does not necessarily require a degree. According to both Rasmus and Chris, another important element of coding jobs is that they are less reliant on learning Danish. Chris points out that English — at least in Europe and the US — is very much the lingua franca of coding. Even in a Danish workplace where Danish is spoken most of the time, instructions related to code and the code itself will essentially be in English, and it is highly unlikely that many tech jobs today will purely be Danish-speaking. This stands in contrast to wider debates about English in Denmark, where places are cut on English language university courses and learning Danish is seen as of primary importance on the road to integration. Neither is Danish the easiest of languages to learn. An article in Babel Magazine cited pronunciation as the reason for Danish being the sixth hardest language in the world for an English speaker and both Chris and Rasmus couldn’t avoid dropping comments about the language. HYF is taught in English, so, as well as it allowing for a far larger group of teachers to draw from, it removes the difficulty of learning a new skill in a language one isn’t quite comfortable with.  Despite this, Chris by no means dismisses the overall importance of Danish when living in Denmark. A student of Danish himself, he talks of the need to show a desire to meet the local population, order in a restaurant and generally be able to communicate on a basic level. According to him, it is requiring Danish as a foundation for employment that should in fact be questioned. It is undoubtedly important to learn the language of the nation you adopt (or adopts you), but it is up for debate whether this needs to happen before finding gainful employment and thus avoiding the sense of anomie that often derives from lacking a place in the job market. The work HYF does seems especially prescient when you consider the context it operates within. Our increasingly

  The Danish Institute for International Studies recently hosted an event that focused on the children of foreign fighters who fought for the Islamic State (IS). At stake is the future of at least 7,000 children under 12. This means that some of these children were brought to IS and some were born there. There are at least 30 Danish children in camps. Many states have citizens who traveled to support IS and may of those states are seeking ways to revoke the citizenship of their nationals, prevent their return, and deny citizenship to their children. What is going on here? Do we not live in societies where we believe in rehabilitation or, if a crime is heinous enough, life sentences? The dialogue around this topic centers on the violence these children have been exposed to and the beliefs of their parents. Analysts and politicians worry that allowing the return of these children and their parents pose a security risk. “… they do not belong in Denmark” say political leaders. To these children, I would like to say, welcome home. To those who question their humanity I say, who are you? The children currently live in camps where they have little to no access to education, organized activities, or a sense of a future. Those who previously lived abroad are having their earliest memories overwritten by a sense that the world does not want them. Those which were born into the Islamic State are given no frame of reference to judge against. For both, the lessons of the Islamic State, that they exist to fight against a world that does not want them, are proved true on a daily basis. It does not have to be this way. DIIS researcher Maja Touzari Greenwood has interviewed Danish foreign fighters who traveled to Syria to fight and have now returned. Among her subjects, she identified a need for a meaningful life that drew them to IS. They thought that through their involvement with IS they could achieve “moral transformation and absolution”. The children currently being left to waste away in camps such as Al-Hawl and al-Roj are being left in situations far worse than those Danish environments that produced individuals who viewed their surroundings as so bereft of value or future that they left to join IS. Thus far, Germany and Belgium have taken the lead in this matter and have repatriated a few orphaned children. Denmark has repatriated one 13-year-old who was shot in the leg after their mother granted consent but is attempting to prevent the return of adults. And, despite the recent change in government, there does not seem to be an effort to renegotiate this year’s earlier deal If the world does not want another Islamic State or Boko Haram it should not keep children in these disastrous conditions as possible recruits are literally toddlers and school-age children who are only just beginning to develop a moral compass. As the Danish Social Democrats say, “we need to help more”.

In the first article of this series, I explored the Lebanese educational system, discussing its outward strengths and successes. Yet, despite Lebanon’s extremely high literacy rates (93.9%)[1], the fact remains that this is nothing but a glittering façade distracting us from an unsettling truth: the Lebanese educational system is severely flawed and outdated, no longer catering to the needs of the students and the market that will be receiving them, as is clearly represented by Lebanon’s youth unemployment rate (17.87 in 2018)[2]. Students graduate with the hopes of finding suitable and decent work, but these dreams are actually shattered as they apply for job after job with seemingly no success. The main factor undermining their efforts lies, in fact, in their education: Lebanon’s educational system, outdated and inflexible as it is, has not been providing them with the core life skills, non-formal education, and capacity-building that would foster their development as individuals and give them a competitive advantage in the market. The Lebanese educational system employs curriculums and modules that have not been changed or updated since 1998 at the very least[3]. The courses taught encompass the traditional subjects (sciences, languages, humanities…) with some schools occasionally offering art or other creative courses. The material is taught, however, by inculcation: students are expected to memorize information and score well when tested, regardless of actual comprehension. Moreover, the information given is more often than not useless in the students’ day-to-day lives and careers. For example, the same history lessons have been taught in schools since the 90s, lessons that concern time periods that no longer hold any consequence over the Lebanese society, politics, reality, economy, …etc. These classes fail to mention the Lebanese Civil War, for instance, even though this time period played a significant role in shaping the Lebanon of today. Another flagrant flaw that can be seen in the Lebanese educational system is the lack of core life skills taught. The curriculum falls short of including subjects and skills that develop the students’ minds and personalities, and help them navigate the world they live in. The material taught is strictly academic, and offers little benefit to a student’s character formation. All potential for personal growth is squashed, and necessary life skills such as communication, problem solving, decision making, leadership, goal setting, and presentation, to name a few, are often overlooked. The system focuses more on handing out unified, academic knowledge, disregarding the particularities of every personal case. Individual talents, interests and skills are thus rarely developed within the context of the educational system and formal education. It therefore comes as no surprise that this system also does not offer vocational training. Students who wish to receive such training must seek it outside their schools and educational system, having to choose between either learning a trade, or receiving a formal education, but never both. The Lebanese system does not arm its students with all the skills they would need to decide for themselves and make a career of their own. All students are usually led to pursuing the same careers, with little to no room for diversity and unconventional jobs. While on the topic of training and preparation for future careers, it is worth noting that the Lebanese system does little to offer its students orientation and counseling to guide them in their decision-making process. Students are usually uninformed on the various career options and their specifics, and stumble blindly towards the career that seems the most suitable for them. Most go on to regret their choices later on, eventually working outside their field. One practice that should be implemented in schools is shadowing, an informal way for someone to learn by observation what it is like to perform a particular job at a workplace. The Lebanese educational system is also for the most part formal, lacking non-formal education. Informal and non-formal learning can empower youth in important areas, such as social inclusion, anti-discrimination and active citizenship, as well as contribute to their personal growth. The range of initiatives and programs that fall under non-formal education (NFE) are diverse: they include literacy and basic education for adults and young people, political and trade union education, and programs for school drop outs, among others. The Lebanese system in itself offers little NFE, and most types of non-formal education are usually very exclusive, targeting specific groups such as refugees and minorities, which makes it inaccessible to a large percentage of the Lebanese. Moreover, the unavailability of sustainable and free non-formal education leads children and adolescents to drop out of formal schools to seek employment, with little chance of ever completing their educations. On the surface, all seems well: a large percentage of the Lebanese population has received some form of post-secondary education, with the number of people holding degrees of varying levels increasing. However, often brushed under the carpet are vital issues such as the student debt that is skyrocketing, the underprivileged, illiterate groups that receive no help from the government, and the ongoing brain drain that continues to claim the Lebanese youth. The situation is in dire need of fixing, but that will probably have to wait for another day. Lebanon’s leaders and politicians have more important problems to tend to, namely who gets the biggest slice of the cake. For the time being, they’ve conveniently decided to turn a blind eye to the failures of this country’s educational system, because what matters is that literacy rates are high, which means that on the surface, all seems well, and they get to avoid accountability for one more day. About the author: Lara Makhoul is a translator. She graduated with honors with a BA in Translation from the Lebanese University in 2018. She is currently an MA student in Research and Translation Studies. She occupies the position of Local Programs Officer at Crossing Borders Lebanon CBL, where she is charged with scouting potential opportunities that would help youth build a brighter future. She also works at The Language Platform, a Lebanese company that

The following is a piece of writing I actually submitted for a travel-writing contest, but I thought it was fitting to share with the readers of the Crossing Border’s blog as it is demonstrative of me as a writer crossing a few borders of my own. Writing a piece like this was a transitory experience for me. I’ve never really written creative, narrative-structured non-fiction before, so the experience of discovering how to tell a story in this way was a learning experience. I also got the opportunity to look back on something I’d experienced with my dad and recollect my memories of our trip together, reliving each moment through the writing process. I hope you will enjoy reading the following story as much as I enjoyed living it and then later writing about it. -Maya . . . My grandma mentioned once that my sister and I are incredibly different people. This wasn’t news, but the way she illustrated our differences struck a chord with me. She said if we were to each go on a hike, my sister would be the trailblazer, rushing through to the peak, where, upon arrival, she would ask “what’s next?”. I, on the other hand, would take my time, thoroughly excavating each staggering path, stopping, literally, to smell the flowers. Bearing this in mind, I went on a hike with my dad while we were travelling in Macedonia. Colour-coded trail markers with Macedonian text pointed in different directions; we had no indication of what lay ahead and chose a path at random. The hike started relatively easily but stops for water grew more frequent. At one rest-stop, I found a branch that doubled as a walking stick for which my dad teased me. The hike continued, and the trail markers were becoming less frequent. At times we doubted whether we were still on the right path. The mossy leaf-laden trail – evident of the transitioning Autumn and alluding to the oncoming winter – narrowed and became rockier, less stable, more steep, more unwelcoming to beginner hikers. Sturdy footing no longer a guarantee. Suddenly it was not so stupid to have that walking stick. We didn’t know what lay ahead. Breathtaking views of kaleidoscopic Autumn foliage? Folded layers of hills converging over a glistening lake? We had no clue. I created a small routine to keep my motivation up; I wanted to make sure the journey was just as breathtaking as the destination. So I counted 10 steps at a time. I climbed, walked, and strode, counting 1, 2, 3… 10. I observed each chalky jagged rock underfoot, noticing the thorny branches weaving in and out of my path when suddenly, snap! My makeshift walking stick snapped clean in half as the space between the sloped ground and myself disappeared. For a moment, I saw myself going over the mountain. I hit the ground and slid back down the path. The plants underneath me were dragged along and found themselves broken under my weight. I slid to a stop after desperately grappling at the loose rocks and branches nearby. I looked up to find my dad, who – forging ahead as my sister would’ve – decided to now stop for his daughter. I looked down once more before getting up, and suddenly a wondrously familiar scent wafted up from the torn greenery below me. It smelled like Thanksgiving. It was thyme. I’d never seen it grow wild before, but something about finding a familiar piece of home helped me feel some affection for the nature that had just betrayed me. Pushing forward, we finally made our way to a peak. The cuts and bruises on my arms and knees were long forgotten as the sweeping landscape unfolded before us. It wasn’t rugged or grand as some wilderness is, but it was wild and pure in a humble way. We free-climbed up the steepest parts on the way up and slid strategically close to the ground on the way down, crushing a certifiable Autumn feast underneath us as we crippled thyme coupled with the red- and black-currant berries staining our clothes. All of this was made worthwhile with that view. At the top, we found an abandoned monastery. I couldn’t help but marvel at the faded wall fresco. At the graffiti signed 1989. At the sheer fact that this holy space was here 700 years ago. After lunch and internal speculation, we made our way back down the mountain. I thought about the little discoveries that made this trip worth being a story to tell. I didn’t expect to be blown away by rolling hills when I’d seen massive mountains elsewhere. I didn’t expect to eat soggy sandwiches with my dad in our own little slice of divinity. I didn’t expect to be beaten up by nature and rewarded with humble beauty. All I knew was I wanted to tell people about this place. I wanted to tell them to take it slow, observe your chosen path with intention, and don’t forget to stop and smell the thyme. by Maya

The 294-page document published by the United Kingdom’s government on March 7th 2019 is not the most exciting thing that you will ever read, for the most part it consists of an endless stream of clarifications, annotations, and updates to already existing definitions in UK immigration processes. However, it does introduce one curious term – the ‘start-up migrant’. The start-up migrant replaces the ‘graduate entrepreneur migrant’, someone who comes to the UK on a Tier 1 visa who has been “officially endorsed as having a genuine and credible business idea” and is from outside of the European Economic Area and Switzerland. This visa costs £363 (3164 DKK), with an additional £363 for every dependent that the visa holder wishes to bring with them. This visa does not allow someone to access public funds, or to settle in the UK. Now that we’ve waded through the appreciably dull definition – why does the ‘start-up migrant’ matter? In public discourse about immigration we are usually presented with certain stereotypes about what makes an immigrant ‘good’ or ‘bad’. Bad immigrants are typically people who come to a country to ‘steak jobs’ or to ‘live off of welfare’, they are ‘criminals’ and ‘scroungers. By contrast, good immigrants are investors and bring with them wealth and skills. Effectively these descriptions are placeholders for ideas of class and cultural values, by framing the debate like this we typically exclude people who might be from a lower income background and we glorify people who have had the good fortune to be more socioeconomically privileged. The ‘start-up migrant’ is just another indication of how the British government wishes to differentiate between who is welcome and who is not. The very word ‘start-up’ conjures images of industrious technology companies, it recalls the image of the ideal neo-liberal saviour – a well-dressed and well-educated person with deep pockets who has come to ‘innovate’ and ‘improve’ society. Equally, the obsession with start-ups and worshipping those who are involved in them is just further indicative of an outmoded pattern of thinking about economics which sees perpetual growth, rather than sustainability, as the answer to all problems. Whenever we move countries we are migrants who are starting up something new, and not all of us are able to leap into founding a new business. Mostly, we work from humble beginnings and just take what work we can. We work in bars, kitchens, or coffee shops. Why is that kind of hard-work not so equally valued? Working in the service industry, or in any line of work which does not involve directing a company, does not make you less valuable as a person. The fact that we see fit to distinguish between ‘start-up migrants’ and other migrant workers speaks volumes about how class prejudice intersects with immigration rights. By Simon Fern