Culture Without Borders
Culture Without Borders
Just over a year ago, in August 2017, crisis struck in a part of Myanmar called the Rakhine state, of where the Rohingya people reside. Approximately 700,000 people escaped and crossed the border to Bangladesh to flee from the Myanmar Army. The Army began undergoing a crackdown on what the United Nations have described as “textbook ethnic cleansing.”
As of March this year there were a reported 40,000 casualties. This war has led to many people fleeing their homes in search of safety and the UNHCR estimates that approximately 2 million people have fled and another 20 million Yemenis are still in need of humanitarian assistance such as healthcare or food as they are at high risk of serious illness and injury and also starvation.
In this context, concrete and accountable commitments, means of implementation and a framework for the follow-up and review of implementation procedures will have to be defined through the Global Compact on Migration.
The day starts on wheels when the bike team opens the doors of the school (Madrasa), to take out the bicycles that will help occupy the classrooms with people who have the desire to learn. In the cafeteria, the volunteers who arrive earlier prepare the first coffees, and the occasional family sits on the sofas.
According to a recent UNHCR report, 68.5 million people were displaced worldwide in 2017. These included refugees, asylum-seekers, internally displaced persons, returning refugees or stateless people. More than half of the refugees were children under 18. This movement was the result of persecution, conflict, and generalized violence.
4 years have passed since the 3rd of August 2014, the day on which the Daesh fighters, or ISIS, in full territorial expansion, started to penetrate in the territory of Sinjar, Northern Iraq, home of the majority of the Yazidis in the world. More than 3,000 Yazidis died and just less than 7,000 have been kidnapped.
Sports may be one of the best ways to bring people together and create understanding towards other people. This is why OCC is always trying to organise various sports events, ranging from cycling and football to volleyball and hiking. In Greece for instance, we regularly organise football tournaments (once even in collaboration with La Liga!), and in Spain we have a cycling group existing of MigraCode students and volunteers.
Growing up inside a refugee camp is not a safe environment for children. They are in constant distress, and don’t have many opportunities to escape the hardships of the life in the camp. This is why OCC offers a free kindergarten service in their center in Greece, allowing families to leave their children with OCC for a day, giving them a safe place to play and learn, while the families have the possibility to work or do other things they wouldn’t be able to do if they had to care for their children all day.
The OCCCycling project has been designed to address the isolation of residents of the Nea Kavala refugee camp. The camp contains over 800 displaced people, and is 4 km from the nearest town, Polykastro. The absence of suitable public transport means that residents struggle to access supermarkets, pharmacies and the local health centre. Having access to bicycles free of charge means that camp residents can access the amenities mentioned, as well as the community and social events beyond the camp.
Migracode acts as a bridge between the demand for skilled people in the tech sector and people with a migration background who are eager to work in the tech industry. Founded in 2019, we are cooperating with other code schools in Europe to build a large community of companies and students to foster both labor integration as well as social inclusion.
