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Building “Desperate Journeys”

Woman in scarf DJ

“Desperate Journeys“, Empathy Action’s new live interactive experience will be launching early next year to explore the refugee crisis with schools, businesses and groups.

Empathy Action are now actively looking for cast, backstage crew and event support to help build empathy with the global displaced and develop solutions and support for the refugee crisis.

The team have been trialling the set build at Tonbridge School courtesy of the Community Action Department of the school during their mid term break.

IMG_7004IMG_7008IMG_7081IMG_E7020IMG_7126IMG_7127IMG_7128IMG_7005 The experience is delivered within a maze-like set which can be assembled in a large hall or even outside during the summer. It will run for around 90 minutes as part of a 2-3 hour package delivered by the Empathy Action team, including briefing and a reflective feedback and discussion session. The experience is designed for up to 30 participants at a time, who will be guided through it by our cast members.

The challenging new piece is firmly based in facts, first hand accounts and case studies of this global issue to bring home to participants the human stories behind the headlines.

The launch is scheduled for 22-27th January at Tonbridge Baptist Church.

Empathy Action is now actively looking for more volunteering help to deliver this experience. The plan, to develop a pool of performers and crew, to rehearse through the autumn ahead of our launch week.

We need adults of any age who are comfortable improvising around a core script, interacting with the participants, and delivering powerful personal stories.”

If you are interested in helping please get in touch. Two local workshops will be running for all those interested.

  • Thursday 2 November 10 am -1 pm (Christ Church, Tunbridge Wells)
  • Friday 10 November 7 pm -10 pm (Christ Church, Tunbridge Wells)

If this strikes a chord with you please get in touch to hear more or to sign up for the workshops. Updates on the project will also be posted on Empathy Action’s Facebook page.IMG_7044IMG_7053IMG_E6998IMG_E7030

Filed Under: Blog, News, Uncategorized Tagged With: CSR, Desperate Journeys, Displaced, Empathy, empathy action, Empathy Actions, Empathy Deficit, Empathy with Refugees, Global Citizenship, Global Refugee Crisis, IDPs, Kinaesthetic Learning, Learning, Pickwell Foundation, Refugee, Refugee simulation, Refugees, school action, Schools, simulation, simulations, Syria Refugees, Teaching Empathy, Tonbridge, Tonbridge Baptist Church, Tonbridge School, Tonbridge School Community Action, volunteering

One Festival Bracelet, Two Refugee Stories

(Photos: Small Projects Istanbul)

A school has become more engaged in the global refugee crisis following an exercise in empathy with students. They have had bespoke bracelets produced for their summer festival, made by several Syrian refugee ladies in Istanbul.

We asked one of the parents, and key donor of the bracelets, together with one of the Syrian ladies, currently in Istanbul who were commissioned to make the bracelets, a set of questions. Their answers were incredibly moving from refugees both past and present looking to the future generation with hope.

What is the most important thing, for you, about these bracelets? 

SYRIAN LADY: Making the bracelets are helping us to make money and support our children. The most important thing the money is used for is rent and schooling for the kids, the most important thing for us and what ‘breaks our backs’ is the rent, it’s more important than the food and clothes, if we don’t have money for the rent they will be out on the streets. We can live without eating so much food, we can live with less, we can live without buying new clothes (nobody is seeing us), we can swap between us and share our clothes. In Syria we owned our own house, we were never in a situation where we needed to think about money for rent, but here in Turkey if we don’t pay the rent it will cause many more problems for us.

SCHOOL PARENT: I am an American journalist, living in England, however, my parents were Bulgarian refugees who escaped from Communism in 1971 and lived in a refugee camp for six months outside Vienna, where I was conceived. My parents loved their country but not the politics of Communism. They received political asylum from the U.S. and my parents arrived to America in 1972 with $80, one suitcase, my baby brother and me on the way. I was the first in all the generations of my family to be born in America. My father was a surgeon in Bulgaria and went on to become chief surgeon at a hospital in Miami Beach, Florida. My mother was a nurse/midwife in Bulgaria and went on to become a maternity nurse in America. They didn’t accept her medical degree from Bulgaria and she had to go back to college to do all her training again as a nurse when she arrived in America. But once she finished her coursework, she found a job as a nurse on the maternity ward at a hospital in Miami and delivered babies there for 25 years until shortly before she died. 

The bracelets to me signify their bravery and voice, in a less-than-accepting world. I’m less concerned about the bracelets themselves per se than about bringing more global attention to the crisis in Syria and that particularly of the refugees, to show that we are all people, regardless of race, religion or the colour of our skin…and that refugees are neither dumb, ignorant, uneducated or trying to game the system of another country. Refugees are in the position they are in because life at home was so dangerous, or their human rights and political freedoms so suppressed that they had no choice but to leave their homeland and beloved countries. We could all be refugees if our governments changed from a democracy to a dictatorship, and the same horrors unfolded in our own lands.

What is your message to the people who will wear these bracelets?

SYRIAN LADY: In Syria I used to feel like a mother more than in Turkey, because in Syria I used to spend more time with my kids, I used to take more care with them. I used to spend in time educating them, playing with them, taking them out, take care of all their needs. But here in Turkey I don’t feel this because I have to go out and work, I am giving them what they need but it’s not enough, I love & provide for them but not in the same way as in Syria, I am taking care of them in the general things, practical matters but not in the deep, quality time, what’s what really makes me a mother. We both suffer from this, me as a mother and them as the children. Our message to the mothers and children who will wear these bracelets is, buy more! Share the message of what the bracelet represents to you! Tell everyone, tell your friends and show everyone, do some marketing and advertising for us!

SCHOOL PARENT: My message to festival goers is to:

“Put your biases aside. What does a refugee look like? You may be surprised to know that a refugee looks exactly like me”, and that “People don’t walk 2000 miles across Europe because they want to go camping and sleep in a tent. They leave their homelands because their human rights have been violated and what they are looking for isn’t your pity, but for acceptance, the chance at freedom and the opportunity to live in a safe haven. They are looking for hope”.

But I have a message for the Syrian women and their families. To them I’d say, “Please don’t ever give up hope, despite how dark life seems at the moment. You are all so very very brave and I have so much respect for how far you’ve come already and the deepest sympathy for your losses at home. You will find a way to a new life and a new community. Trust in the kindness of people, embrace those that help you and keep showing the rest of the world how to open their hearts and their minds.”

What is your hope for the future?

SYRIAN LADY: We wish that our kids will hopefully be successful in their lives and never live the crisis that we are living now. Most importantly I want them to continue their education.

The question was also asked to their children, their response is… at first a hesitant silence, then one of their sons says that he wishes for his mother ‘good work, not more work, but good work, a happy life and to stay strong’
(The mother gives him a gentle nod and he smiles shyly)

SCHOOL PARENT: My hopes for these refugees is that they are granted political asylum soon and are able to find new beginnings where they can find hope, acceptance, peace, safety, freedom and some semblance of a normal life where they aren’t viewed as a refugee but as an equal, and allowed to shine.

… As I prepare to move back to the U.S. in a corporate move that will ship the entire contents of our house on a 40ft container, I just thought how truly privileged I am and how remarkable it was that my parents arrived in America with just one suitcase, having left all their worldly possessions behind that night they escaped. They were very brave.

Most importantly, I just wanted to reassure these Syrian women and their families that there is hope. We were one of the families that made it and succeeded through a lot of determination and hard work. It wasn’t always easy but my parents never gave up.

I owe my parents a lot of gratitude for the life they gave me and the choices they made to ensure our freedom.

I hope my words can offer some comfort and, at a minimum, some understanding.

Events like this allow a crucial moment and platform for people, like these, to narrate a story and craft empathy. We, too, hope that the Syrian ladies’ children could echo words such as these from the school parent in years to come.

If you are interested in creating a bespoke product, working with marginalised communities, for your event please get in touch as we are keen to develop more empathy in events through products and event hosts sharing the stories behind the products.

Displaced Syrian ladies living in Istanbul making the Summer Festival bracelet for St Michael’s Prep School. (Photos: Small Projects Istanbul)

#SM17 Summer Festival Bracelets

Bespoke school summer festival bracelets made in their colours

Filed Under: Blog, News Tagged With: #SM17, Empathy, empathy action, Empathy Actions, Fundraising, Gifts that Give Twice, Global Citizenship, Parents Action, Refugee, Refugees, school action, Small Projects Istanbul, St Michaels Prep School, Syria Refugees, Syrian Refugees

Parents get behind a ‘Syrian’ School Summer Festival

Festival bracelets made by displaced Syrian Women for Livestock 2016

Festival bracelets made by displaced Syrian Women for Livestock 2016

St Michaels Summer Festival Bracelets being prepared for the making.

St Michaels Summer Festival Bracelets in the making.

Following the success of Syrian refugee women made festival entrance bracelets last year, parents of St Michaels Prep School, Otford have sought a similar venture for their sell-out summer festival for over 500 people.

After the Global Citizenship empathy programme earlier this year with St Michaels school, one parent sought to do more within the school. Kate French, loved the idea, like Livestock Festival last year, of having bracelets specially made up by displaced Syrian women to help and show support from the school to others less fortunate than themselves. She especially liked the thought of other school parents stepping up to make this happen.

Already the school has created a number of excellent responses since the Empathy Day with children turning their birthdays into events to give gifts with purpose for their guests using the Action Packs and fundraising to help the education of other displaced children. Two lads even raised over £2000 for Oxfam’s Syrian Refugee Response through shaving their heads.

The event is on the 20th May and the chase is on by Kate to find other parents to be ‘Key Donors’ in making this happen. It represents, for Kate, a real opportunity to make thier school festival give twice- not only to the people attending but also to the Syrian women making the bracelets and for their family’s livelihoods.

There were some great ladies from our partners in Small Projects Istanbul who helped last time, see pictures beneath and click on them to find out more about the women and their families.

If you are interested in getting involved or having a similar Syrian themed event, party, wedding or conference get in touch with us here. We’d love to help you make your event give twice.

Meet Mayada (maker of Livestock's White Bracelets)

Meet Mayada (maker of Livestock’s White Bracelets)

Meet Sousan (maker of Livestock's Blue Bracelets)

Meet Sousan (maker of Livestock’s Blue Bracelets)

Meet Ayat (maker of Livestock's Red Bracelets)

Meet Ayat (maker of Livestock’s Red Bracelets)

Meet Muna (maker of Livestock's Yellow Bracelets)

Meet Muna (maker of Livestock’s Yellow Bracelets)

Meet Sabah (maker of Livestock's Green Bracelets)

Meet Sabah (maker of Livestock’s Green Bracelets)

Photos by Alpkhan Photography, Small Projects Istanbul & Empathy Action

Filed Under: Blog, News, Uncategorized Tagged With: Action Packs, Empathy, Empathy Actions, festival, Global Citizenship, Livestock, Parents Action, school action, St Michaels Prep School

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