 Good afternoon all. Let's then resume our work. We will not wait too long as we are already six minutes late from the planned agenda. First before start actually I got a kind of a minus from a previous session as a moderator. I did not present myself and then I did present everybody in the panel but not myself and in that sense I want to correct this now. I'm my name is Dankis Erevis, I'm new head of the governing bodies within the IEM. I have some 20-plus years of working experience within the immigration field. I started my life as a refugee lawyer and then moved towards immigration. I work for all field that actually present here. I was the first academic then move my work in work for one American NGO. From there I moved and worked for a Swiss Development Corporation. This is a Swiss government organization and from there I was a deputy minister in my own government and then joined IEM. Meaning I made a full circle around. That's me in brief and I will stop. In IEM I work in Ukraine, Belarus, Central Asia. I came here as basically sub-regional according to chief omission in five Central Asian countries before I served there for seven years. Now we're coming to the next session. It's actually called the migrant voice and it's actually I could say it's a voice that we need to listen. Here we have two distinct panelists. From my right is Miss Tana Farok. I pronounce properly. Tana is a Yemeni documentary photographer and storyteller based in Netherlands. In 2016 she was awarded break the silence scholarship to pursue Masen Academy in documentary photography and photojournalism at University of Westminster in London. Her work aims to achieve personal reportage that negotiates themes of memory, boundaries and violence. She focuses on collaborative storytelling projects to tell personal anecdotes as displacement and migration. Previously Tana worked with videos International Angels in Yemen to tell stories of displacement women and children portraying the suffering and highlighting the forgetting crisis there. Her work appeared in several publications among them. Al Jazeera, world press photo, BBC, Huffington Post, CNN and others. Recently Tana was awarded the Open Society Foundation Falshope Grant and exhibition of her ongoing project, The Passport. All correct? And I would like to present also the other colleague as actually this should be your show. I will just present you then just give you the floor. On my left is Mr Khalid Kari. Khalid Kari is an entrepreneur who founded the Humstown Cooperative. Correct? Humstown was set up in Rome in 2017 and to provide the local communities with authentic Syrian cuisine. The business has helped migrant employees of all of whom are Syrian refugees become financially dependent and integrate into the Italian society. It also builds a partnership with Italian business and social organizations. I'm actually very happy to have two youth that will speak about it and then I will just start to give you the floor. In order that I actually present you, then Tana floor is yours. Thank you so much for your warm introduction. So I'd like to start my talk today with this phrase here. Who knows I might survive. I, this as a storyteller, this phrase comes in every conversation I have with the people I photograph. It comes from, I heard it from the women in Yemen who try to do their best to make it work in spite of all the challenges. I heard it from the refugees, the Yemeni refugees around the borders between Djibouti and Yemen. I heard it from Khaled, a guy who's been living in the refugee camp forever now with no legal status or paper. And basically I heard it from everyone who's going through this weird phase of integration, learning a new language, trying to fit in, working hard to actually please the society. And I love this phrase so much to be honest. I think it carries this notion of uncertainty, but also hope. I love it more because I lived it myself. I experienced it. I went through it. And sometimes when I reflect about my story, to be honest, I don't know where it began. Every story has a beginning, middle and end. I don't care that much to know the end, but I'm very curious where did it started with me. Because I record moments as a photographer, I think my moment started here in Yemen. This is a picture of, this is me and my husband here. This is where we were sleeping, just between the bathroom and the kitchen, because it's the only corner in the house that doesn't have windows. This is where we felt protected from the glass. Sooner enough, we left Yemen temporary, but we do feel sometimes that we're still living in the temporary. What happens afterward is that what it was me trying to visualize the trauma I've been through. It was my journey to trace it. What is trauma? Is trauma invisible? How can I trace it? How can I visualize it? For me, trauma is like this. Like this drawing here. I really don't know how to understand it. Sometimes I feel as a storyteller, I create, I produce work because I want to connect. I want to cross barriers. You see, when I feel so uncomfortable when things are so strange to me, but when I put them in a story, they don't feel strange anymore, and they feel so relieved. A way for me to do that is through participatory photo projects. I feel so privileged that I have means of expression, that I own the medium, photography, so powerful, that I am an author of my own story, and I'm an insider to others' people's stories. So for my participants, for the people I photograph, I wanted this for them as well. I want them to have this sense of agency. So in every photo project, I make sure that my participants have this, you know, we have this exchange of thoughts and ideas, and they are willing and capable to express themselves the way I do. I work with children, I work with everyone. This is my latest series from Merkazi Camp. I think it's the only camp for Yemenis in Djibouti, and the way I, you know, when you are in a move, nobody asks you, how are you feeling or how are you? You're like constantly trying to survive, and I think for these children, I really wanted to ask them, how are you feeling? What are your hopes and dreams, and through their writings, they express that. So I'm gonna translate to you what they are saying here. This is Yasmine. She said, I don't like housework. This is Bushra. She's saying to me, one day my dream will come true. This is Said saying to me, I want to be a soldier. This is Khaled saying to me, I hate swearing and saying bad words. He's a good kid. This is Mohsen. He's saying to me, I really want to be free from the prison of phrasism. This is Sarah. She wants to be a lawyer. This is Amina. She says to me, nobody forgets his country. This is Khaldun saying to me, I really want to live a life like other children in the world. And this is Ahmed, my closest, I think. He says, I've been looking for my own mom for days. And the only reason for him to say that because he lost his mom for three months in Yemen. There was a happy ending. They found each other. And this is Sarah saying to me, ties bilad al-ais. Ties as a city in Sanada was mostly bombarded. And this is Sabah saying to me, I hate to be homesick. So through this series, I wanted to exchange these feelings with children. I want them to be able to express their hopes and dreams. And I want to carry their voice over and over again. On a bigger scale, I work on a, sorry, I work on a photo book project called the passport. And basically the passport is also a participatory photo project where I get to tell stories of migrants, displaced people, refugees, through the notion of documents. What does it mean for you to be a Yemeni carrying the Yemeni passport? What does it mean for you to be a Syrian carrying the Syrian passport? Basically, how can such a piece of document, literally this size, or maybe smaller, control us, define us, shape us? So the project also was done through the portraiture and letters. I'm showing you examples here. I hope you can read it. So yeah, it seems that I figured it out. It seems that I have now my means of expression that I can connect. And in a way, I am navigating through the barriers. It seems that I survived. But yes, I managed, I survived. I did it. But let me walk you through behind the scenes. So at this phase, I think my identity became so complex. In a way, I have this one identity that is based on similarity and unity and my internal factors, my culture, my backgrounds. But at the same time, my identity became so active in the process of identification with new culture, new place. Now I don't have problem with that. I am willing to embrace it. It's such a nice thing. I have this huge perspective on life. The only thing that bothers me is that I and so many people I got to photograph, we're confronting labels that we never ever been exposed to before. Labels such as refugee asylum seekers, stateless, undocumented. And to be honest, it's such an ashamed because these labels put us in a lock and in a closet. We are so in the shadow. And it's such a, I'm saying it's such a shame because how do you expect to unlock our potential if we're in the shadow? This is something I wish for. I wish we come up with initiatives with, you know, social culture, artistic initiatives that would work so hard to promote, I don't know, like social, you know, inclusion projects, projects that will work hard to melt the barriers. We need to be fully engaged. The lowly road, this is not a name of a project, but before I tell you what is that, I want to ask you, but be honest with me, in a show of hands, how many of you have started their life again from zero after going so far in their careers and their whatever they're doing? Please be honest. Okay, I see lots of hands in the back. I am one of them. So, yes, the lowly road is we're starting our life from zero. When you're in a move, this it's not a bad thing to start your life from zero, but when you're alone, it's a very dark road. You have no idea. I wish also for efforts that we spend so much of our time and energy to bring those people who are got stuck in this phase and to actually guide them through this road. We are only so obsessed with, you know, highlighting the successful examples, but what about those who got stuck in this phase? This leads me to a really quote I like by a Margaret Edward, a Canadian poet, who says, when you are in the middle of a story, it's not a story at all, but only a confusion, a dark, roaring, a blindness. It's only afterwards that it becomes anything like a story. When you're telling it to yourself or someone else, I think I am in the middle of a story still. And I'll tell you something. We're always going to be on a move. We're always going to be moving. We're going to leave our countries. We're going to return to our countries. But I think if that must happen, then let's move barriers and walls in a state. I don't know. I'm not going to, you know, label us again, but we young people, we have these two journeys in this moving process. One leads to hope and the other leads to despair. And it's actually up to you, up to me, up to all of us to guide us, to guide everyone through the right phase. Thank you. Introduce me and inviting me to be, no? Right? Okay. Here we are. Thank you so much for having me. And I'm really super happy to be with you today, guys. So my name is Khaled. I'm going to go to talk about my travel and how I arrive here and how I'm sitting right now with you. So Syria, when I said the country, Syria, what comes to your mind? When I say a country, Syria, what comes to your mind? Yes, Syria has been reduced to war. People are suffering every single moment. Actually, even this moment, why we sit and talk about them. But I'm not here to dweel about the bus or even to talk about the prison. I'm here to talk about the future of my country, the future that seems far off and certain, but most definitely, in very, in very well, the future will be there for Syria. Eventually, the war will stop. And that's why I'm here to talk about prison that leads to the future and is not hinted by the bust. I decided to leave my country 2015 after working as a soldier for five years. And I decided to keep the country because the place wasn't like so safe. And I arrived to this that I don't want to kill anyone and I don't want to let anyone to kill me. So I have to go out with my body. I arrived to Turkey. I skipped like as all the immigrants. I searched for people to smuggling me through Syria to Turkey. I lived in Turkey like for a year between stations, airports, searching for a life and stuff. After that, I traveled to Libya to cross the sea coming to Europe. When I arrived to Europe, also, it's a long story, hold the journey because I crossed over in the sea and was like five days. And one of the organization trade really bad refugees, immigrants in the middle of the sea because I would love to tell you the small experience in the middle of the huge boat. We were super hungry for three days. We don't have any water, any food. And one of the people who worked with the organization, I'm not going to go to call it, he had an abel in his hand and we wore more than 500 people in the boat. And he brought this abel and throw it in the fly. And we created like a mountain of human being. We came up like all of us like up each other. So the place was bloody. So I arrived to Lampedosia. The bless can hold only 200, 300 people for a time of 27 hours. I arrived when a thousand others were already there. No resource, no food, no first aid, no advising, no translation. Forget mental health. When it's come to not even getting the basic necessity of life. After five days I decided to leave. I'm going to leave. I cannot leave in this way. I skipped work. I skipped work because I'm not feeling safety. I skipped work because I want to continue my education. I skipped work because I want to save as any human being he has to be. He has to save. He has to have his right. He has to do what he has to do in life. I skipped Switzerland. But I had also another, I arrived to Italy. So I skipped Switzerland. We're going to go to find why I skipped Switzerland. During my time I have been treated like a prisoner. And worse, as an animal at the time. I've been treated as threat under nation. And being handcuffed and taking place. Unlucky. My family, I was given food three times a day. Yes. But at the same times I wasn't able to connect them for three months at the time. Yes. I was breathing but burial life. I was angry, frustrated, disappointed, hurt and hopeless. I had no directions. I would land in the airport or train station and not know where to go next, where to leave, where to eat, where to go. And yet I'm here. Standing in front of you as Interbrunure speaking in English, studying in Rome, giving and speech here in Geneva in front of you. I would like to talk about how I integrate with Italian society since I arrived. When arrived to Rome, there was no accommodation for me. I spent three months in the street living in the sidewalk. I get to know an organization called Bob-Op Experience. They take care about immigrants, about refugees who live in the street, who don't have any document. They gave him healthcare, they gave healthcare, access to education, access to the law, figured out how they can break up their paper. After this time, from getting help to helping people as volunteer. So I train my situation from someone who live in the street with this organization to start to be volunteering. After that, I started, I was one of the founder of a company which called Homostown, which is really wonderful company which helps Syrian refugees to be self-confident, independent, to have their own money, which we cook, we package, we catering. We do cooking, packaging, catering. We hire refugees. They start to integrate with learning languages and integrate with the society. Right now, I'm going to create my own business, which also Homost, because I love Homost. I'm going to create my own company, which is called Homostroma. But with this company, I'm going to show the culture of Arab, to have a small library where we can go all together. I know exactly that refugees has to integrate with the native people. But also, I believe that the native people, we have to meet in half way. We have to meet in half way. I believe that native people also have to learn something about our culture, going on, do this kind of mixing. So the idea of Homostroma, we're going to have a place which is a library where we can meet in half way, introduce our culture, give the local people this opportunity to know how we are. So finally, I have a small recommendation and I have a really special case about the organization, whose work on Rome. There is an old man, he has 35, 53 years old, and he tried to bring his family to Italy. And after having accepted for the government of Italy to bring his family to Italy, his contract with camp when he leaves is done, is finished. So the camp telling him, you have to go out this camp, and he went to the camp telling him, hey, guys, I just ask you and permission to bring my family here. And they said, okay, we can't bring your family, but your family, they will leave in the camp, but you cannot see them. There is no sense to bring them from Syria, like leave them in Syria and don't bring them to Syria, next to their father, and their father, they cannot visit them, because he has to be in the street. According to Italian law, each refugee has to stay with the government just six months. And this, and this six months, he has to be enrolled and integrate and have language and figuring out work. Italian people, they cannot figure work for themselves sometime. Italian young people, how you accept an immigrant, he's arrived to new land, new language, new cultural, everything is new. Everything around him is strange, totally. He want even to understand to get integrated to know what's going on. And after that, he can start working after that. He can start learning the language. If he not comfortable with his mental health, let's see, thinking about his family living under the war, and this, and this, and this, and this, and this. So, but this is the law, like how organizations working around, how they treat immigrants, how the law is not like matching what the need in the real society, in the real world. There is none like, there is none work, there is none like a program for integrates. There is something, a lot of things is missing. I'm sorry, I talk long. Thank you so much. Thank you both. After listening to those two breathtaking stories, I'm opening the floor to all of you for any questions, comments, suggestions. Please. I cannot see Yemen. Please, go ahead. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. And I wish to thank Thana and Khaled for sharing their stories, which I do feel that it's heartbreaking. And I wish to thank Thana for highlighting an important issue about the post-traumatic stress disorder, which we face either in Syria or in Yemen, where the highly affected people are the children, youth and women, where they have limited access to the psychological support either in the hospitals or in specialized centers. And I joined the voice of both Khaled and Thana for the support of the youth based initiatives, which is highly important. But I have a question for both. What is missing over here that we cannot hear more stories and more voices of the most affected youth, especially those under the conflict areas? Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Thank you. Do we have another question that we can or we can respond to this one and then wait for another one? Okay, then let's go for a response. Please. You know, sometimes I thank you so much for your question. And, you know, I sometimes call myself a visual researcher. It's a research question that I'm going through now. What is missing? I think what is missing is the voice of the people themselves. I highlighted what I mentioned that you brought. We're always obsessed with bringing successful examples, but we somehow neglect the unsuccessful examples. We cheer up for those who made it because it makes us feel good. And we forgot those who did not make it. I wish somebody from the panelists today who did not make it. But this is what is missing. I cheer for Khaled. He's such a successful example, started his business, you know, went to university again. I had this conversation with him from nothing to everything. But what is missing is the things that we don't hear about those people who are still around the borders, those people who could not start a new life because they are still and square and zero in this zero phase. When I was in Yemen, people, you know, I get this request, we need to hear about women resilience and everything. Can you tell us more? But yeah, women made it. But do you want to hear about those women who did not make it? So I think I'm not trying to be pessimistic here. I know we need hope, but also we need stories of the other version of not hope. I think this is what missing, because only then we can act more. I hope I answered your question. Thank you so much. I have, like, just a small thing to say. Exactly what is missing that a lot of when you find like a new story or when you find like someone who wants really to express himself and like start to thinking what's going on, what's happening, what's happening for women in the border, for children in the border. People use their story in a bad way, which I mean. I mean, if I met like a journalist, he's going to go to advertise a lot of things over my my children, and then I'm going to go to feel bad because I told him what's going on. So a huge percentage of refugees, they have like huge stories. They can change a lot of things and by just telling a story, they feel scared. They feel that another people are advertising over them. They stop talking just if you go to them and ask them what's going on. Can you tell me what's going on in your country? Can you tell me what's going on in the border? Can you tell me what's going on in there? Here, he would not never tell you because he lose this kind of trust. He didn't trust this community anymore. He's feeling scared even to like to express himself what he has to say. If he said he's going to go to find this story tomorrow, is publish it, the journalists get money, the organizing of establish get money, they get money and he is who tell the story, he living in the sidewalk still. This is missing. Thank you so much. I hope this is an answer. Thank you both. Is there any other question or reflection? I cannot really see. Please present yourself. My name is Elaine Franz from Flow in Action and I had the great pleasure of working with Khaled in the last 12 months. I'm very honored and delighted that he is on the panel. We heard it this morning and we've heard it again in this session that there are commonalities of humanity in the stories. There's an intersectionality across stories that unite us and unite everyone in this room. I'd be really interested to hear from the panel from what, if you could give us three elements, three emotions, three aspects of those stories that unite everyone in this room and act as a call to action, a call to the humanity in each one of us in this room, what would it be? What would those three things be? Just give it some time to think then it'll just a couple of seconds. And I would add everyone who is checking their mobile phone at this minute if they could perhaps put those down and pay attention to these stories. So I hope that if I get the meaning of the question, which means that I have to name three kinds of emotions. Why revisions or immigrants, they didn't tell their story or what they unpacked from this room right now after telling our story, what I'm expecting like for example. Honestly, I'm expecting future. I don't want like the thing, the suffering or the experience. Okay, I'm gonna go to call it experience because I had this word suffering. So experience, the experience that I went through it, through traveling and crossing the sea and living in the street and like losing, like you feel yourself lose. I don't like to give it to anyone and I hope like after this, like this talk we have it to figure out like even small stories. But the most three important emotions when you leave your country or when you are like working with refugees like as Khaled, I really feel scared. I really feel scared. I really feel scared for the future because I cannot give a real name for the future. I cannot see like 2050 for example to 050. I cannot imagine, I don't have like read a measure. According to science there is no not no no read a measure for 2050 for example. According to climate change, according to environment, according to policy, according to the world is going on the Middle East, according to England, according to Latin America, according to everyone, according to United States, according to the crazy is going on the world. I don't know. There is like really so hard. But I hope like I have really hope like with full meaning of hope that we can we can do something like all we need is a table like circle table five children like five chairs and talk about something and we go to do it honestly and with all like it's not business like when you are working like a humidity you want to fix the world if like in all the cases in all the chair like if you are talking about women's of who are talking about about the about children of who are talking about immigrant environment that beauty this if we can without business we don't want to make a benefit about this from this problem we have to fix it and go over it and right now like I don't know I don't know and all there that's it that's it that's it we got we have to go over it I'm sorry because I'm a little bit emotional so this my my answer I have this I hope if I get your question. Okay so I'm gonna name three things that I think unite us in this room and will motivate us for actions I these are passion curiosity and empathy whereas all of us are so passionate about doing something good we don't know it yet or how to you know implement it but we we have this passion otherwise why are you in this room right the other thing curiosity we are so curious about other human stories so how about we can you know enforce this curiosity in in raising our passion to to to actually change human lives and what it's when I say change human lives I'm not talking here about the basics helping them learn a new language within the system across the borders I'm talking about help them construct a new way of life that suit us all that can you know act that can make us feel that we are fully engaged here the third thing is empathy I think we all have this but we we keep saying these words and we we believe in them but I think we if we implemented in real life practically in people's life and we exercise it in actions then I think we'll see so much good-coming another thing it's not one of the things but last week in the Hague I think few weeks ago in the Hague there was those you know protests against climate change and everything and if you asked me did you go I really wanted to participate but I feel like my head is so occupied with a lot of things to do and like my family in Yemen how are they doing me dealing with the integration in the Netherlands I really want to be engaged I think but I can do that because I am occupied with all these problematic things that is happening to me phasing this new phase in life so I think if we focus our energy and effort in these three things I see so much good-coming so much things are coming on the ground I hope I answered your question sorry I'm nervous in the panel question of international space from the floor if not then we should thank you to our both wonderful speakers that we had today for a migrant voice panel and I think as actually if the migration is defined as a process in the time and space I think the things that you need to think also about how we'll actually bring the youth as some of these time just coming to the current space of those old dialogue if you have in this room thank you all and please don't leave because now we will just exchange the panelists instead of one day and getting another one also named and we'll moderate the next session and then let's proceed thank you