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Future change-creator for a brighter tomorrow

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The first training course of “Alternative B: Green action for change”, took place in Gørding, Denmark in the second week of March. During the course young people from across Europe came together to create business plans for their future social enterprises. To share more about the project we invited Kasia, one of the participants in the course, for an interview. Kasia is a Polish student, currently doing her Master’s degree in Global Refugee studies at Aalborg University north of Denmark. In her own words she is  “…an explorer, a social science enthusiast, with a dose of interest for global issues and their reflection on a local level”. Katarzyna Tarasiewicz   Tell us more about the project “Alternative B” and your participation in it? I must admit, I found out about the project relatively late and my decision to participate was quite spontaneous. Honestly, I had never thought of myself as a social entrepreneur, never really considered it… but then I got interested in what the project was promising to introduce and make us do within just a couple of days. I decided to give it a shot and see what I get out of it. And I got positively surprised   What type of social enterprise idea are you working on? I don’t want to reveal too many details quite yet! What I can say at this point is that I want to cooperate with young artists in Denmark (as a start) to help them promote their art, while supporting a good cause. It will mainly engage young, talented people who are willing to sell their products and allocate part of the profit to charity.   What did you learn for the time spent in Goerding during the course? Oh, this one is hard. I have learn a lot! But first of all, I have learnt that there is no such a thing as ‘no ideas’. I didn’t have anything particular in mind upon arrival and honestly, I wasn’t really sure if social entrepreneurship was something I would find myself in, but I quickly realized that human creativity is limitless. Especially, when working with other people, one can develop great projects ideas and this is what I mostly appreciate the “Alternative B” project for – letting you get to know such a diverse group of individuals. I have of course learnt lots about the technicalities of working with social enterprise, like how to plan or fund your business. However, opening my eyes for ideas and people and making me realize what social business really is about has been the greatest value after all.   What would be your next step in relation to this project? Reach out to people I need to make my business work! I have already started to spread the news here and there, but since I am still a student, I am facing problems with time management. But one of the things which have been engraved in my memory since we all left Gørding, is that if you want to do something for people, you must work with people. I am planning on doing market research soon to find out how many are willing to participate and what sorts of products are desired. It will be a lot of work, but my levels of motivation and belief in this project are as high as they were during my time in Gørding. Thanks to the group of advisors and supervisors we met during the first course of the “Alternative B” project, I believe most of us will succeed and share their stories next time, when we all meet in Bulgaria.

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A Diary of a Syrian Immigrant in Sweden: Is weed legal in Syria?

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Post written by Ines After several years of living in Lund, Sweden, as an expat/immigrant, I have noticed that there are three kinds of people. First, there are people who do not know anything about the war in Syria and may ask me funny questions such as; “Is Weed legal where you come from?” Second, there are those who know about the situation and are not shy to ask me if my parents are still alive or not. The third kind is the sweetest kind, the ones who are so embarrassingly understanding and nice. Sadly, there are too few of those people hence when I meet one I just want to hug them and cry. However, this blog post is primarily going to be about the first and the second kind of people. To be honest, I actually prefer to be asked about weed than to be interrogated insensitively about how I got here and where my parents are; “are your parents still in Syria?” is usually the first question asked after “where are you from?” It is of course not good for people to be so clueless about what is going on in other parts of the world. But hey, at least they do not leave harsh comments that are hard to shake off. As a student, I of course engage in the student life and try to forget all about the mess I left behind home. However, people can be so insensitive and that can bring me down in a split second. For instance, I was hanging out with a few friends at a student party when a Swedish guy came up to me and said “hola”, which is Spanish for “hey.” I then said that I am not from Spain, and as we continued the conversation he soon found out where I am really from. His first comment was “Congratulations, you’re alive!” His reaction really shocked me and made me feel uncomfortable. It made me think of all the other people who are not alive and of all the things I am trying to escape from. How can I enjoy myself if every time I meet somebody new they remind me of my worst nightmares? Oh how I wish it stops there but alas, it does not. The continuous questions about whether I eat pork or drink alcohol, whether I am a Muslim or not, whether my parents are okay with me partying and having male friends/ boyfriends are just few of the insensitive questions I get in my everyday life. The other day my sister who has recently moved to Stockholm to continue her graduate studies shared with me an interesting story that I would also like to share with you.  A few days ago my sister had an after-work small gathering where they served alcohol. As my sister was drinking her cocktail, a Swedish colleague of hers approached her and told her that the drink she is drinking has alcohol and that she can find alcohol-free drinks in the fridge. Then, of course, my sister was uncomfortable as she told her colleague that she does drink alcohol and there is no need for her to change her drink. People have become so heavily influenced by stereotypes that they have become rude and intolerable. If I do not eat pork or I do not drink alcohol, have no doubt that I will ask somebody whether the food has pork or not before eating it, or if the drink has alcohol before drinking it. However, if I am drinking alcohol just let me enjoy my drink. Is that too much to ask? I think I say this on behalf of many immigrants; we are so sick of trying to prove other people’s prejudice wrong. In every country whether it was a third world country or a first world country, there are all kinds of people. There are the good, the bad, the lazy, the rude, the polite, the religious, the atheist… I am sure if we search somewhere deep in our hearts we can still find our raw ingredients. The human in us does not judge a person by how they look like or where they come from but merely by their actions without daring to generalize. After all, your fingers are not all the same! What hurts the most actually is that even people who are the closest to us can also be insensitive. The other day, one of the closest people to me, who is also Swedish, was nice enough to help me work on my pronunciation in Swedish. I was trying to play a Swedish song called “Sverige “by the famous Swedish band Kent on my ukulele.  After few days of practice, I had made a really good progress that I had only one word that sounded a bit off. The first thing my friend said was “when you say that word you sound like an immigrant” When I heard those words, I could not control my feelings. I had tears in my eyes although I am not a cry-baby. It actually takes a lot to make me cry. However, I know he did not think too much about the word before he used it but still it hurts so damn much, especially coming from him, someone who knows me so well. At that moment, I felt that this is always going to be the way things are. Even though I am working hard on learning Swedish, which is my fourth language, the minute I slip people will classify me as an “immigrant”. If you think about it, the actual meaning of the word is “new comer” but the media or even the society has been using this word in a negative sense for decades now. I mean why is it not enough to say that I have an accent when I say that word? He could have also said “you sounded non-Swedish”, which is completely acceptable. I could think of many alternative words that can avoid the

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Controlling Population in Developing Countries – A War Against Women

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The deadly mass sterilization in India has sparked outrage worldwide. In a surgery spree, more than 80 women were submitted to the procedure in less than 5 hours, all done by the same doctor. Dozens of women have become ill from which 14 have already died. Population growth control is a controversial topic, especially when it comes to the developing world, where population reduction seems to hold the key to ending poverty. But is it really that simple?

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Dreams from a Refugee in Kurdistan of Iraq

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CB has interviewed Hakar Ghanem Elias, a student at the American University of Iraq, Sulaimani (AUIS), a refugee who is also working for NGOs Mohammed: Can you tell us more about your experience with NGOs? I speak English, my Kurdish is good and I speak Arabic, so the first time refugees came, I applied to work with an NGO, and I got accepted to work with them. Also, the NGO I work with now does some cooperation work with others NGOs such as ACTED. I work mostly as a translator for the NGO. What is your experience with refugees? The refugees that I have met do not feel that there is much focus on their issues and their needs. For example, I know some families from Shingal who still have not gotten their monthly payment from the government (each refugee who has an Iraqi ID is supposed to get 90,000 Iraqi Dinars monlthy). I did a research and interviewed four people about this issue, and I found out that based on this research 50% of the refugees do not get that monthly payment. However, the NGOs also try to help and fill the gap, but the problem is that some refugees complain that the NGOs help only refugees who have personal connections with them, so there is alleged corruption. This problem exists because the locals lead these NGOs. Also, there is the problem that many refugees have lost their official Iraqi ID when they had tried to escape the war, and therefore they cannot get the monthly payment from the government. And renewing these Iraqi IDs or creating a new one is very difficult and a long process. And even the NGO cannot give help to those who have lost their Iraqi IDs. Do you consider yourself as a refugee? Yes, of course, I have lost my home. I am a displaced person. Even though I am a student at AUIS, but still I am a refugee since I see my family, my friends and relatives have lost their home. I used to have a town or a city. I used to have a normal life. I became a refugee from August 3rd, 2014. Some of my family is living in Erbil and some is living in Duhok. What issues have you faced as a refugee? Now the big main issue for employees is that they do not get their monthly payment. For example, my parents, who are teachers, have not gotten their payroll for almost five months. So, if I do not have work, and my dad does not have work, then how can the family live without a salary for five months. And now there is very little logistical aid in the field. So most of the friends I know dropped school and dropped university, and they went to work as receptionists or in factories. And even women started to work because their families have no salaries. (Note: The Iraqi Government and also the Kurdistan Regional Government could not pay the monthly payment for almost three months, have not been able to pay the monthly payment of their employees consistently, and now people get the salary of July while we are now in the end of September). Why hasn’t your family traveled to Europe when the situation is that bad? Actually most of my family has already left and some of them left 23 years ago. I have fifteen friends, and only two are left, and the rest have traveled outside of Iraq. And more members of my family are starting to leave in the next month or so. My brothers and sisters will leave soon and only my parents and I will remain. But why hasn’t your family traveled yet? In Bashiqa, my hometown, we had a life that is better than any place in the world and even Europe. We had money, education and resources. One of my cousins, who lives in Germany, came back to Bashiqa before ISIS took our city, and said actually our lives in Bashiqa are much better than his life in Germany. In Bashiqa we used to focus on education and business, and each person had two jobs. I made a survey before ISIS and I found out that 90% to 92% of people in Bashiqa used to be students but also work at the same time. So, life was really great and we did not need to go outside. Now we think of going out because we lost everything. Bashiqa was one of the richest cities in Iraq. But now we have lost everything and we are not sure of the future, so that is why we are not thinking of rebuilding but we are thinking of travelling outside. The road is very dangerous to Europe now and many die on the way and even when you reach Europe you are not sure whether you get a residency or not, but you still think the best choice is to travel? Of course. I read a lot about business and politics, and I know the economy is going down for the next five years, and so instead of staying here and doing nothing, you should go there and get your residency or whatever. You build a new life and experience other cultures and build yourself and then come back. So there is no hope for the next 5 years. Do you feel any discrimination against you as a refugee here in Kurdistan? No I have not felt discrimination, and the Yiezids and Christians in general have not faced discrimination. But I am not sure, but maybe Arabs have faced some discrimination. As you know in this country it depends so much on which political party you support and so on and so forth. (Yeizids are supposedly Kurds and Kurds feel some connection to them, but Kurds feel less connection with the Arabs since the bloody history in Iraq and especially the suffering that the Kurdish people have experienced by the Iraqi governments, especially Sadam Hussien regime.) What is your

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What a Fence Doesn’t Resolve – When Human Rights Crash with Immigration Policy

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Many French people cannot remember when the immigration problem started in Calais. This is not a new issue, but sometimes it appears in a sudden way and we are aware because the tension is unbearable or it coincides with other related European matters. We could see in the news, just to bring one random episode as an example, how hundreds of African people were asking to cross the famous fence while a big group of policemen waited on the other side. When the migrants tried to get through, they were attacked with pepper spray – that was the end of the gathering.

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The Plight of the Syrians

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One of these days, I was in a train station in Budapest when a Syrian man talked to me. His nationality is the only thing I could get because he didn’t speak English. He asked me about one word in his language and I tried to guess with gestures what he meant. It was very frustrating because I couldn’t after a while. There was guard of the station walking around and I asked him for help. Damn, he didn’t speak English either. But in his way to talk, I believed understanding the problem of this Syrian was a typical one and many of them had had the same request for the last time. I said sorry for not to be able to help and I left hoping the guard help the Syrian, but after 2 minutes, I saw the guard in other far place. So I don’t think so.

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Apply for FETE now

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Are you a young immigrant living in Denmark? Are you looking for more work experience? Do you want to increase your chances in the job market? Crossing Borders has a great project for you to join in autumn 2015. Thanks to EU funding, the pro-ject is free of charge. However, to be considered you need to meet the following conditions: – you are legally living in Denmark – you are a non EU-citizen – your age is between 18-30 – you are willing to do a 3-month internship in Denmark (part or full-time) – you want to gain relevant professional skills in a series of workshops – you want to be part of an international network with people from similar backgrounds – you are able to attend a one-week workshop in Malta Then apply to become a part of the FETE program! Read more about FETE here or send your application here.  

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CALL FOR PARTNERS – Young Eco-entrepreneur Start-ups

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  Crossing Borders in Denmark and its Swedish partner SWideas are pleased to invite to join in this innovative project under the Erasmus + Strategic Partnership for the 1 October. Project title: Eco-Entrepreneurship Start-Ups Project type: Erasmus + Strategic Partnership Number and type of partners: 4 programme countries Lead applicant: Crossing Borders (Denmark) Project objectives Developing Eco-entrepreneurship Knowledge Resource Hub for creative eco-entrepreneurial skills for young people Facilitating strategic partnership and innovation for good practices Fostering eco-enterprise among youth in line with the EU’s Horizon 2020 vision objective of employability Building the capacities of youth for the development of a more sustainable, dynamic Eco-entrepreneurship sector contributing to economic growth and youth employment Enabling a core of 20 young people to develop business plans for the creation of Eco-entrepreneurship projects and ideas for projects/small businesses Institutional capacity building and training of partners   Target groups Young people aged 15-30 with Eco-enterprise aptitudes Activities Mapping exercise of the needs for the Eco-entrepreneurship in the partner countries Non-formal educational program for Eco-entrepreneurship Awareness raising seminars/events about the Eco-entrepreneurship Business mentoring Comprehensive training program for beneficiaries Peer learning and co-creation Deployment and dissemination of project results Pilot incubators by the project target group National and trans-national kick-off and experience sharing meetings Project monitoring, evaluation and reporting Partner Organizations To be considered as partner in this project, partner organizations need to meet the following criteria: Non-profit NGO or social enterprise based in the EU programme countries Work for the benefit of society Share and work according to universal human rights principles of solidarity and respect for diversity Have a solid local and international dimension in their work Committed to contribute to the project at all levels from preparation through implementation, evaluation and dissemination, sustainability and follow‐up   Next Steps If your organization meets the above criteria, you are welcome to send us your organizational data by filling out and returning the enclosed organizational form by 15 August 2015.   Contact details: For all questions, please contact our director Garba Diallo: garba@crossingborders.dk

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Meet the Team – Aarhus

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Crossing Borders has been in Aarhus since March and the second internship programme has just started. Meet the team that has been bringing dialogue to Jutland. CB has been expanding its activities to Aarhus and we have been organizing events such as #InTheSameBoat, making interviews and creating videos to empower youth and, most of all, creating space for dialogue. The second edition of the CB Aarhus internship will be focused on social media, organizing events and making sure Aarhus multicultural youth is heard loud and clear. We also want to empower our interns by giving them leadership tools that they can use in their own communities and in their future careers. Here is the team making it possible: Catarina Santos (Portugal) – Coordinator I love to travel and to live in different places, I have lived in Portugal, Spain, China, and I have now settled in Denmark. I have a background in Communication and in International Development and I love to write. My goal is to use my abilities and experiences to create the necessary space for dialogue and to make sure every voice is heard. I am passionate about development, feminism, social media and culture.   Samanta Ruiz Rocha (Mexico) I was born and raised in Mexico but I have been living in the United States for about 10 years now. I just graduated with a bachelors degree in political science/international relations and this fall I am starting a masters program in international studies at Aarhus university. In my free time I like watching movies, rock wall climbing or just hanging out with friends. Also, I really love traveling and seeing places I had never seen before.   Kathrine Dybdahl Jensen (Denmark) I’m a native dane and I have lived abroad for many years, most recently in Spain. I’m finishing my bachelors degree in Comparative Literature and Anthropology at Aarhus University this semester. When I can, I love to travel, experience new cultures and try new languages. I like to have projects to work on. In my spare time I enjoy writing and spending time with friends and family.     Angela Barakoska (Macedonia) I am from Macedonia, right now i am finishing up my master thesis in International studies, programme at Aarhus University, so I would be graduated very very soon. Throughout the year i’ve been working as a volunteer, intern in many different areas related to EU, Amnesty International, University etc.In my spare time I really like to socialize with people, go to the gym (which is a must), visit interesting events and just try to enjoy life and use my time efficiently. I hope that together we would contribute to many interesting ideas and develop something creative and inspiring!

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Crossing the prickly Cypriot border

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In these days when the fences for splitting people is an extremely topical issue, we can remember a strange and very artificial border that separates an European capital, as Berlin was in its time. We are talking about Nicosia, in Cyprus, and the last capital in the world still divided. And the History of this broken-hearts story starts not really long away, in the second part of the last century.

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