Meet Your Neighbor, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin (HU), Germany

 

PROJECT TITLE:	Peacemakers Project: Humboldt Universität zu Berlin
STAKEHOLDERS:	Café Karanfil, Daily Resistance journal Publish
TARGET AUDIENCE	International students with migration background including refugee students at Humboldt University and other universities as well as more generally people with migration background and refugee status in Berlin.
PROJECT PERIOD:	01.11.2018 – 31.03.2020
OBJECTIVE:	Raise social awareness about migrants and refugees including university students in the German society and to build a friendly environment between the host community and migrants by organizing public social gathering events as well as to foster a peaceful generation and establish a positive contact between refugees and the host community.
ACTIVITY CALENDAR:
17.09.2019	“Meet Your Neighbor 1” 5 Human Books
25.10.2019	“Meet Your Neighbor 2” 1 Human Book
Early January 2020	“Meet Your Neighbor 3”
TBD	“Meet Your Neighbor 4”
TBD	“Meet Your Neighbor 5”
PROJECT OUTPUTS:	Examples: –          More than 35 participants including students from various universities and non-students have participated in the last two “Meet Your Neighbor” events.   –          During fall 2019 two “Meet Your Neighbor” events have been organized by the Humboldt University Peace Envoys.
DISSEMINATION CHANNELS:	Facebook: @peacemakers.hu Instagram: @peacemakers.hu

Determined to contribute to raising social awareness about refugees and migrants in general including university students in the German society and put effort to build a friendly environment between the host community and migrants, Peace envoys from Humboldt University have organized several public events in Berlin. The main objective of these events was to bring closer the host society and migrants win Berlin, where they could share a joint gathering place and establish contact.

 

The peace envoys have organized and will continue to organize a series of social gathering events with the title “Meet Your Neighbor” in a café called Karanfil in Berlin. The reason that they decided to choose Café Karanfil was, on the one hand, it is owned by a refugee from Turkey and on the other hand, migrants and refugees feel comfortable coming to this café as well as Germans and others. During these gatherings, the locals have had a chance to hear the real-life stories of volunteering refugees as storytellers. Seeing the participants talking to the refugees and understanding their experiences of pain and suffering at home and in the host community was a great step for the Peacemakers to establish an understanding and helping community between the refugees and the host society.

 

The participation of a family including their children in the event was a great feeling for the Peace Envoys especially when the kids were very much interested in asking questions trying to understand the different aspects of the storytellers’ life experiences. This incident further strengthened the hope that society’s perception of migrants and refugees can be changed, and a more peaceful generation through these efforts can be fostered.