Cultural Community Centre
Cultural Community Centre
Jaeuk Jung | Jui -Lu Shih | Martina Gustavsson
Spaces of Conflict . MA . Konstfack
Community Centre as a method for empowering refugees
1. Identified problems/needs within refugee camps
• Lack of information & education
• Little opportunities to improve life (for refugees)
• Depending on outside sources
2. Cultural Community Centers ?
To be able to fulfill these needs we wanted to create a platform or non – political, non religious arena for different educational, social and cultural activities. This is to create opportunities for the people in the camp to make use of their own skills and be able to develop their desires and aspirations. By organizing and conduct both skills training and adult literacy classes with teachers who are community members themselves, a level of independency will be reached.
The community centre could serve several purposes and needs. The functions of the centre could be categorized into the following:
• Cultural centre
• Knowledge centre
• Information centre
• Social centre
3. SWOT analysis of Community Centre in Refugee Camp
To be able to refine our concept we did a quick SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) analysis which we based on looking at existing centers in Sweden and projects run by the UNHCR. We also discussed the idea of a Community Centre within the refugee camp with Martin Sjöholm, working for the Swedish Rescue Services Agency.
Strengths (internal):
• Use inside knowledge
• Share special knowledge
• Gather information in one place
• Serve the need for public meeting points/common areas
• Non political
• Permanent staff from the camp
• Income-generating activities
Weaknesses (internal):
• Risk for dictatorship/misuse by strong individuals/groups
• Existing cultural norms/religions might lead to conflicts
• Good organization is crucial
• It might be difficult to involve citizens of the camp on a voluntary basis
• Conflicts might arise between different groups
• The citizens will in a way still be dependent on NGO: s providing them materials etc.
Opportunities (external):
• Spread information to the international community
• Increased understanding for refugee situation
• Increased funds/ financial support
• Cooperation with private donators, designers and companies
• Draw media attention to the camp
• Create job opportunities inside and outside the camp
Threats (external):
• Culture clashes due to norms/religions
• War/violence
• No governmental control and support (Somalia)
• Difficulties in handling cash/ paying employees
4. Our recommended approach
Our proposal for how to empower refugees living in refugee camps is for the UNHCR (or NGOs) to institute the “seed” for a community centre at an early stage in the construction of the camp. The more urgent basic needs such as food and shelter are the most important to fulfill at this early stage, but we also found out a need for information among the refugees. Today, a temporary information and registration office is set up in the camp for distribution of food ration cards and registration of new arrived refugees. We see this information office as the foundation or start up for a Community Centre. The benefits from this would be apart from this already being a meeting point for information; it is also a part of the camps organization. When the camp grows, so would the centre and more organization and planning is needed. From being a very temporary structure we see it developing into a more permanent building.
We believe a successful attempt to establish a Community Centre must involve the people living in the camp themselves. Without having the involvement and engagement from some citizens the Centre will not be theirs to care about. By establish an action group, consisting of men, women and youth to come together and discuss the decisions concerning the centre. A permanent staff of camp citizens is also needed to run the centre together with the NGO. We see the development of the Community Centre as an ongoing process, when the centre can serve different purposes and have different functions. At the start up the most urgent need might be skills training and adult literacy classes for the unemployed men of the camp. Later, more cultural activities might be held, like dance classes or storytelling.
We also see a need for better understanding of the refugee situation from the international community. Today, most broadcasting material is created from outside sources. By creating for example a homepage for the centre broadcasting the events and activities there, we believe an increased understanding of the life in the refugee camp will spread to the international community.
5. Conclusions of recommended approach:
• Establish Community Centre at early stage in refugee camp
• Involve the people of the camp in the development of the centre
• Hire a permanent staff to run the centre together with an NGO
• Organize action groups to discuss problems and make decisions concerning the centre
• Let the development of the centre be an ongoing process
• Use the Community Centre to spread knowledge about life in the camp
6. Sources
• Martin Sjöholm, Swedish Rescue Services Agency
• Folkbibliotekets roll I det lokala samhället http://hdl.handle.net/2320/3813
• Empowering communities one village at a time, UNHCR
http://www.unhcr.org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/news/opendoc.htm?tbl=NEWS&id=42c3bfa04
Sharing your life with others is a human need.
To prove the need for a Cultural Community Centre in refugee camps we decided to make an investigation of our own context at Konstfack. We found several common spaces in school who served the purpose of meeting points. At these places we share stories, information, culture, knowledge, play and socialize. By doing this research we could prove that sharing your life with others is a human need, regardless of your nationality, gender, race, and culture.
Workshop
To present our concept of the Cultural Community Centre as a platform for sharing we held a small workshop in class. We wanted everyone to participate in the discussion; therefore the same method as doing the research was used. Instead of trying to imagine the possible opportunities a Community Centre could give refugees living in a camp, we asked the participants of the workshop to think of Konstfack as a Cultural Community Centre and which of their own needs this centre fulfills.
To make it more enjoyable and symbolic we brought a “tree”, symbolizing the centre, for the participants to produce leaves to. We brought some green leafs being the opportunities the centre could offer. The brown leafs, on the other hand, symbolized the possible weaknesses of the centre. Then we also had the yellow fruits being the good outcomes/results from the centre and the “bad”, grey fruits were the threats/problems that could occur.
Everyone was asked to write down their point of views on the leaf- and fruit-shaped notes and then read them out loud to share their thoughts with the whole group.