SEMINAR REPORT ON YOUTHS AGAINST RACISM
Venue: Pasila Youth House, Helsinki, Finland.
Date: Friday 10th - Sunday 12th , 2007
On Friday evening Fatima Usman (President of AFAES) introduced herself and AFAES to the participants and welcomed them to Finland and to the seminar.
Foods from the different participating countries were introduced while the participants and trainers were given the opportunity to interact with each other.
On Saturday Anneli Kurg (Project Coordinator in AFAES) gave a morning speech in which she welcomed the participants to the day’s program and introduced the two trainers Jonathan Alexander (Sweden) and Cassius Wilkinson (UK).
Fatima Usman introduced AFAES to the participants and explained the reasons for the birth of the association. She also introduced the teachers and workshops of the association.
Ali Hussein Yusuf (an AFAES member) talked about the English Somali English classes for Finnish born Somali youths, as well as the benefits it gives them.
Marius Monkam (an AFAES member) talked about the art class and the encouragement it brings to the kids.
Aria Arai (Publicity Secretary in AFAES and Cultural Producer at Caisa Cultural Centre in Helsinki) talked about Caisa and the Finnish budget for cultural activities.
West Archibong Okon (an AFAES member) talked about the workshops on Afro dance and rhythms.
Jonathan Alexander and Cassius Wilkinson (trainers) explained the days Program. Cassius Wilkinson (trainer) talked about problems facing the youth.
There have been energizing games and songs introduced by some participants.
Fatima Usman (President of AFAES) taught the participants the song (Fatou sin gala) which was highly appreciated.
Guest Speaker Mohammaed Ali Qasim (Maahanmuuttajien Tuki ry) introduced an organization combating racism http://www.enar-eu.org.
Anti-discrimination, policy Planning, racist violence and crime have all been improved vastly trough the participation of ENAR-EU.
There have been wondering questions regarding initiatives needed by both immigrants and authorities in making a better situation.
The countries that were represented was:
- Finland (AFAES) Harry Ukeje (General Secretary of AFAES). He talked about AFAES Workshops and the meeting schedule of each workshop.
- Portugal (two organizations: OCRE and IEJ, both sang songs), and (O ladrão do Negro menu, danced popular dance from Portugal.
- Italy (two organizations CSEAAM and Salam House Italy).
- Belgium (two organizations PAC and EVERE).
The following comparative list of colors in use was introduced under “Find the Negative and Positive”:
White-Positive: White Xmas, White Wedding dress, White light, White letter, White Wedding
White-Neutral: Night in White, White Lie, White Strips
White-Negative: White Widow, White like Mozzarella, White boy, White Trash, White Pale
Red-Positive: Passion, Love, Rosa, Life
Red-Neutral: Red light (traffic light), Changing evolution of life
Red-Negative: Violence, Danger, Death, Blood, Angry, Red neck (racist), Fear, Communist
Black-Positive: Black chocolate, Liquorices, Black bar, Black sea, Black Films, Black on white, Black and white pictures, Black ink, Black bird, Black coffee
Black-Neutral: Black and white, Black panther, Black vine, Black night, Black hills, Black soap, Black olive, Black widow
Black-Negative: Black eye, Black market, Black news, Black feeling, Black magic, Black idea, Black sheep, Black job
Green-Positive: Happiness, Magic, Multi-ethnic, Spice of life, Rebirth,Creation, Hope
Green-Negative: Suspense (for what will be), Confusion, Division, Illusion
Green-Neutral: Use in own Language, Symbol for gay (Belgium), Flag of Peace(Italy), Rainbow.
Group assignment by Jonathan Alexander (trainer):
What does Africa look like and what influences/dictates that image for us?. (Where does it come from?)
How do we decide what topics are the most important in our situations or countries today?
What influences our decision?
(Participants are not yet too tired but are looking forward to a trip to the Finnish sauna)
Answers:
• Media, Stereotype, Relatives, Home made racism, education, history, friends,Danger, and passion.
Later, there was a meeting with the huge Finnish association: KALEVA Youth Association.
After a discussion on its activities, Finnish Tango lessons were given by some of its youth.
On Sunday the participants were questioned to reflect on whether all humans are equal, “immigrants take our jobs”, and the relation Child-home-school-society issues.
Wishes of immigrants:
An exercise was introduced to give participants an indication that a person’s situation in society depends on ethnicity,
sexuality, religion and other factors.
The participants were asked to imagine everyday life of Finnish people. The comments reflect highly the wishes of the immigrants! Some of the comments were like if they never have problems with money, live in a nice house with telephone & TV, feel their language and culture are respected, know where to get information, have never been discriminated, can go on holidays once a year, have an interesting life and are positive about future, can study whatever they like, go to cinema once a week, etc.
On the last day Jonathan Alexander (trainer) asked the participants to compile a list of hopes and fears they had before they came to the Seminar. Here are some of the answers:
Hopes: To make new contacts, meet nice people, exchange ideas, learn new things, find ways to try and improve the situation in own country, hope to learn from others, new ideas to modify the actual society,know each others,learn about other cultures, live an experience that will make me grow, have more knowledge about the youth, teach what was learnt from the seminar to the youth, create a network, keep in contact and share information, learn about the reality of racism in other country, implement some activities learned During the seminar, take new ideas back to my country, make new friends,
Improve myself; share my ideas with others, fit in well with the group, receive new energy for future activities, open my mind to the situations of youth in the EU, improve language skills, for more support funding from the EU for projects like these, be positively committed to help other people.
Fears: Accommodation, not having the possibility to visit the city, interaction with other participants, going to Finland and knowing little about its culture, meeting new people, the Seminar being boring, encounter some discrimination among the participants, language problem, freeze from the Finnish weather, lack of time to fully know everybody, not have enough time to go deeper into each subject, not liking the activities set up for the seminar, to be interpreted as a bad person/contact, leap back to reality after the Seminar, coming across superficial contents during the seminar, not enough
time, fear that the youth will not use what we have to teach them, not to be the oldest in the group, would not be given the opportunity to express myself, to have a stressed atmosphere.
In the end, Anneli Kurg (Project Coordinator in AFAES) thanked the participants and added: “Now we can go on and hope that we can make out of this a training course. I am happy that this seminar was put together with Fatima Usman (President of AFAES) I hope we can cooperate again in more Seminars”.
And she ended with the following quote
"It is not our differences that divide us but our inability to recognize, accept and celebrate those differences”.