Culture Without Borders
Culture Without Borders
Last year, a total of 3,231 people lost their lives or went missing in the sea while traveling from the north of Africa to Europe, according to UNHCR. Does the Greek government really care about this data? The country hasn’t changed any measures to host asylum seekers properly. Yet it receives millions of European funds every year destined to host refugees.
Over the last two years, Open Cultural Center has had the chance to take part in Emerging Communities, a project that aims to empower community-led initiatives to address social, political, economic, and environmental issues. Now that the project is ending, we take the opportunity to look back and reflect on the lessons learned.
As part of the European project “Ukraine Now”, which shines a light on the situation of people fleeing the conflict in Ukraine, we met up with Irina & Viktor from Donetsk to talk about their journey to Barcelona and their current situation in Catalonia.
“Imagine living in a container with small windows and no air-conditioning in 40 degrees heat.” These are the words of Mohammad, currently living in Nea Kavala camp in Greece, a country that experienced its hottest July in 50 years, with temperatures rising even above 40 degrees.
For many, painting and drawing can be a calming and soothing activity when everything around you is always changing and out of your control. In part, this is the case of 20-year-old Peyman, from Herat, Afghanistan, who is currently one of the OCC Greece volunteers living in the Nea Kavala refugee camp.
This article brings together the perspectives of Borders:None and OCC Greece, two NGOs working towards the integration and inclusion of refugees and asylum seekers respectively in Croatia and Greece. Both…
Continuing our series of Insights by OCC, in this second article we explore the relationship that Palestinian displaced youth, born and raised in refugee camps or in diaspora, have with Palestine and their sense of identity. We will retrace how their sense of belonging to Palestine can be constructed through three different voices, while providing an overview of the situation of Palestinian refugees in different Arab countries.
Spain’s current policies are slightly more inclusive than those of other EU countries. As part of the INTEgreat project, OCC conducted research on integration in Spain in the areas of health, employment, training, and social cohesion. The conclusions were clear: findings from the research show that newcomers face several obstacles in accessing essential services.
What made 30 people of different ages, nationalities, and backgrounds spend two weeks in Italy? Their desire to attend the training about Cultural Mediation of the RE.BE.CO project and start their journey as cultural mediators! In this article, participants Favour, Mariia, and Daniel explain to us their experiences.
What is going on in Colombia after the election of a historically leftist government?
Did the peace agreement really bring a stop to violence in the country? Is there hope for the new government? Nelly and Lucía, two Colombian women who migrated to Spain, tell us their stories to help us get closer to the reality of Buenaventura, a port on Colombia’s Pacific coast. A place full of contradictions, that summarises many of the main issues of the country, where prosperity and poverty clash into violence, but where the potential of a future Colombia can already be perceived.
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