Migrant Stories: local causes, global responsibility.
It is a project to raise awareness about the reality and reasons that lead young Senegalese people to want to migrate. In this way, we want to promote the awareness-raising work that we have been doing for years with our volunteers.
This proposal began to take shape in 2022. Throughout that year, three talks were held at the Lycée Djignabo Institute in Ziguinchor, focused on raising awareness among young people about what it means to migrate to European countries. The aim was to provide as much information as possible about the consequences of boarding a cayuco bound for Europe, so that they could make a decision with the utmost knowledge and responsibility. Following this line of work, we have begun work on the next project in the country: the filming of a documentary on the causes that lead thousands of young Senegalese to seek new opportunities.
This project has two objectives:
On the one hand, continue raising awareness in secondary schools in Ziguinchor. Inform young Senegalese people of the risks involved in undertaking such a journey. According to a 2019 study, Scaling Fences, more than half of the migrants surveyed described the migration journey as more dangerous than they had expected.
On the other hand, in Catalonia, efforts are being made to change the host society’s perception of migrants and their journeys. As members of the host society, we are often very uninformed about the reality that migrants have left behind and the difficulties they face in their daily lives, systematically violating their rights and justifying certain attitudes through racist narratives rooted in the collective imagination. Therefore, we want to bring these realities closer to home in order to bring about change in these narratives and demand full guarantees of rights for all people.
Filming took place in Catalonia and Senegal during the autumn of 2023. We are currently in the process of editing all the recorded material. The project will feature various audiovisual works. At this point, we already have a work available with testimonies from Senegalese people who have arrived in Catalonia, which will be used to raise awareness in Senegal, and a short film to raise awareness in Catalan educational centres. In September, we will have completed the feature film, which will allow us to reach a wider audience.
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A project supported by:
