France – Refugee Roads

Conquering the freezing lorry first, and the theater stage second

By Refugee Roads | October 18, 2019 | Comments 0 Comment

Day 06, In a bus

Hossein. Our encounter with him in 2016 really put the issue of unaccompanied minors in our view. Back then we met him in a camp in Northern France, right between two nightly cycles of trying to stop a truck on the local highway and hiding in it for up to a day to stay unnoticed and to so cross the border to the UK. He was traveling all alone; his Iranian mother did not have the funds to flee the war altogether. So, in 2015 she sent him, to enable him to have a safe future in the UK.

I followed Hossein like so many others on Facebook and it took a couple more weeks until Hossein finally left the strained conditions in the French camp for good. I learned later that it took him 16 hours in a freezing lorry, withstanding temperatures around 0 degrees Celsius to reach his destination.

Fast forward to November 2018. Scrolling through our timeline I suddenly saw a familiar face on the article of a local UK news site. Foster parents had taken Hossein in and he had enrolled in college to study theatre. He was awarded student of the year just a couple weeks earlier. And now he was on trial.

The British Home Office had rejected his asylum application and told him that it was safe for him to return to Iran. Yet Hossein feared that he would be executed on his return because of his family’s involvement in politics. When the appeal came around in December, the local community had mobilized in front of the court, the college had released a statement in his support, and thousands had signed a petition to prevent his deportation. Luckily, the judge overruled the decision of the Home Office and granted Hossein a five-year permit to stay.

Through seeing this story unfold, I learned another significant detail about him. In an interview, he explained why he is so passionate about being on stage. He has not spoken to his mother and has no way of contacting her since he left. He hopes that one day she will see him on stage so that they can reunite.

Best, Florian

Cooking in the Grande-Synthe refugee camp

By Refugee Roads | June 17, 2016 | Comments 0 Comment

[Day 11]

We spent the past few days with volunteers from the Kesha Niya Kitchen in the Grande-Synthe refugee camp. The kitchen is providing meals for around 700 people three times a day (or rather at night, given it is Ramadan). It is run by VolxKüche München and they rely entirely on volunteers, donations and charity. They are urgently looking for new volunteers (cooks, artists, everyone really). Their work is quite extensive and not just limited to cooking… I realized this at the latest when I drove to the Calais train station with a borrowed van, picking up a Kurdish family that was stranded there at 3am. So please get in touch with them if you are willing to lend a helping hand.

As for us, it is difficult to put our experiences into words. Florian and I had a few emotional moments during our visit: this starts with hearing about the individual stories of some people in the camp, such as Hussein who is turning 17 soon and tried to flee to the UK during the night we stayed in Grande-Synthe. He made it passed the first two Eurotunnel checkpoints run by the French but was caught at the third control by the British (a process that is somewhat typical and perhaps an indication for planned illegal migration by France?). On the day we left the camp he was preparing to attempt the same journey again that night. We will never fully understand how much pressure there must be for a 16-year-old to undertake such a risky journey again and again. We also saw a lot of talent in the camp, especially among the younger children who spoke to us in fluent English. We also encountered strikingly beautiful art… paintings, poetry, and music: Shakar, for instance, showed me his superb guitar skills (I play guitar for 15 years and couldn’t keep up with his fingerplay!). We talked about Paco de Lucia and he showed me Flamenco rhythms on the guitar. Perhaps the most sobering moment was our visit to the children’s center. Once we arrived we saw the kids playing around with a bike and munching on some free candy lollipops – something rather commonplace at children’s playgrounds. Yet this ordinary playing field soon transformed into an unconventional scene: the kids jumped onto a relatively large carrier, hid in its compartments and then drove it around the room yelling “UK… Britain…UK!!”. Our Kurdish friend explained to us that they were acting out an escape; the carrier is a large truck on its way to the UK, the smuggler – played by a three-year-old – opening the little compartments for them to hide, you name it. The kids transforming something so serious into a seemingly fun play seems to be their way of processing what happens in the camp. Our Kurdish friend had teary eyes when saying “These are our children… this is how they play.”

Initially, the camp may appear as a misery with its 650-700 people stuck amidst their pursuits for a better life. Nevertheless, once we focused more on the individual stories of people – instead of looking at the collective – we experienced hope, talent, and extreme generosity within the community. We sincerely hope that our documentary will ultimately portray these experiences through the various stories and snapshots we captured.

Now off to the Calais ‘Jungle’.

Greetings, Timo & Florian