A new social innovation project entitled "I Am Not a Refugee" launching in Luxembourg aims to highlight the real stories and thoughts of refugees and asylum seekers in the face of misconceptions and conjecture.
The more than a million refugees and migrants that arrived in Europe over the last year has raised serious questions about the region's commitment to humanitarian values and with a further three million individuals expected to arrive over the coming twelve months the challenges of reception and inclusion appear set to become even more significant.
The "I Am Not a Refugee" website project argues that whilst a lot has been said and written about refugees, the people themselves and their identities remain largely anonymous, their previous life and who they are swamped under shocking statistics. The aim of the website is therefore to connect refugees with the local population and foster multiculturalism through the time-honoured and essentially human tradition of sharing stories.
Local residents are encouraged to contact the refugees, meet them, open their world up to them, help them integrate, find a place to work or stay, and support them in writing a new story in a new country. According to the organisers behind the project, whilst many members of the Luxembourg population have shown strong solidarity in welcoming refugees, integration in the long-term requires more than the provision of clothes or money, but instead individual and personal engagament and taking matters into one's own hands rather than simply depending on the state or public/private charities.
The website www.iamnotarefugee.lu enables refugees to re-empower themselves and personally present their lives and stories the way they ought to be told. The page provides excerpts in the words of refugees themselves - little, personal glimpses into the experiences of individuals from different backgrounds, regions and professions who have been roped together into a group known as refugees.
Photo by I Am Not A Refugee/Mustafa
