Building Bridges Statement

The Toolkit was designed to collect and share the know-how on voluntary projects involving people seeking or who have recently found refuge, as well as raising awareness on forced migration in general. The collection of guidelines, methods and case studies is non-exhaustive and should simply foster your own inspiration and support you in implementing projects on the topic. The creation of the Toolkit has been driven by the ever bigger need of the international SCI network to exchange best practices on projects in the field. It was coordinated by SCI Switzerland with the support of Útilapu Hungary. Its existence wouldn’t have been possible without the support of the Mercator Foundation Switzerland and the active contribution of the Building Bridges working group and a number of SCI branches.

METHODS AND TOOLS serve to support your work on the topic of refugees and migration with different target groups.

HUMAN RIGHTS THROUGH PICTURES

Interactive game

Time needed: ½ hour – 1 hour + preparation: a couple of hours finding and printing out pictures

Objectives / aim: A starting point for discussion of human rights and forced migration and to raise awareness about the topic

Level of Difficulty: easy; It is easy to organize and doesn’t require a lot of preparation.

Resources needed: Printed pictures, a space where you can sit in a circle and you can put the pictures out

Number of participants: Depends on the amount of time and pictures

Contact / Source: Emmi Ruohonen emmi.ruohonen@kvtfinland.org

    Description
    This method has been used in several KVT’s camp visits and study sessions to open a discussion of the topic and orientating the participants to the subject. Participants can develop “visual literacy”, listening and communication skills.

     

    Steps:

    1. Collect and print out pictures that represent human rights and/or forced migration. When selecting pictures you can define the topic to be human rights in general or to be around a more specific topic such as forced migration or human traffic. 
    2. Print them out and prepare cards from them (glue on a cardboard or laminate. Make sure you know what the pictures represent.
    3. Set them to a place where everyone can see them and easily pick one.
    4. Ask the members of the group to pick 1-3 pictures that touch them somehow or raise questions.
    4. Then you do a round so that everyone can present what pictures they picked and why. The facilitator also says what the picture really represents (for example if it is from a certain situation or represents a campaign or certain human right) and you can then discuss about the topics of the pictures.
    5. Make sure everyone can participate in the discussion.

    Tips:

    • If you publish pictures in social media or your website, make sure that you have permission to use the pictures.
    • Create a safe environment for discussion; so that it is easy and natural to share own experiences and ask questions. Make sure that nobody feels uncomfortable.
    • You can easily find art and pictures about the human rights declaration. Campaigns of different NGO’s also have impressive pictures.

    CONTRIBUTE!

    You can share your experience, observations, tips and tricks, pictures etc. by uploading for instance a method or a case study to the Building Bridges Toolkit. As this Toolkit is a work in progress to which all involved parties are invited to contribute, we would also be very grateful for your support and contribution in order to inspire others to continue the work towards peace and intercultural understanding.