The plight of hundreds of thousands of #Rohingya people is the world's fastest-growing refugee emergency. Rohingyas were stripped of their citizenship, making them stateless and victimised by violence and persecution. Rohingyas are now part of a more significant crisis — religious violence.
At our first-ever event, we highlighted the situation of the Rohingyas to the #European audience.
1)We heard first-hand experiences of life at Rohingya camps in #Bangladesh - #Kutapulong and Cox Bazaar, by Sonia Nandzik of Refocus Media Labs.
2)We heard the the history of the Rohingyas and the precarious 'statelessness' position of the Rohingyas and its legal consequences, by Kasia Przybysławska from the Centrum Pomocy Prawnej im. Haliny Nieć (Halina Nieć Legal Aid Centre).
3) We heard the experiences of Rohingya people who are settled and integrated into a community, namely, in Chennai, #India by Sindhuja Sankaran through a short film called ''To us, #Chennai smells like #Freedom''.
4) The event was moderated by Anna Wilczynska of #Islamista/Salam Lab.
We also displayed some beautiful photographs of the Rohingya community from the Kutapulong camp taken by Douglas Herman of Refocus Media Labs and some portrait #photographs of the Rohingya community in Chennai, India, photographed by David Weston. These photographs were for sale, and we also collected some donations to raise money to buy little gifts for the kids in Chennai, India. These gifts were bought by our team members, Sindhuja Sankaran and Jayashri Ramesh, and distributed to the kids who were ecstatic when they received them. The boys got a new t-shirt, the girls got some cute jewellery, and the kids got stuffed toys and cars.
The event ended with a great discussion from our audience of 80 people! We believe in communicating about the situation of refugees globally. Even though geographically we might not be close to that problem we must come together to #RethinkRefugees all over the world.