English below:

Rethinking Refugees: Knowledge and Action is a global initiative based in Krakow, Poland. This informal initiative, which is now being registered as an official foundation, was founded in July 2018 by Dr. Sindhuja Sankaran, a social psychology researcher in Poland. Sindhuja had spent some time at one of the Greek refugee camps called Moria in Lesbos between 2017 -2018 and wanted to share the knowledge of volunteering at Moria. The initiative grew to support the following aims-

(i)             to raise awareness about the situation of refugees,

(ii)           to facilitate re-humanisation of refugees,

(iii)         to establish effective ways to help refugees, and

(iv)          to bridge the gap between science and practice in this field. 

In almost two years, since its founding, the team grew. We managed to organise more than 15 such events in the form of awareness events that include lectures, discussion, workshops, charity concerts, theatre, art, and film.

Please have a look at the events we've done so far here:

1) Rethinking Refugees

2) Rethinking Islam

3) Rethinking Borders

4) Winter Light Festival

World Refugee Day 2020 - Rethinking Borders ONLINE

From June 17-21, we organised the first-ever global digital awareness event on the occasion of World Refugee Day on June 20th. During the five days, we celebrated, honoured and stood in solidarity with refugees all over the world by means of webinars, workshops, an online charity concert, an online theatre performance, online cooking workshop and an online slam poetry evening during this online event. Because this was an online event - there was a global movement we saw, where people all over the world, joined together to take part in all the events with the primary purpose of raising awareness. We had webinars about how to re-humanise refugees, about living in war-torn countries, about political participation and refugee integration with organisations and most importantly, an open discussion with refugees. You can find all this in our Facebook Page - Rethinking Refugees - Knowledge and Action.

We also had amazing Global music concert, wherein we had musicians sending their music from all over the world which we uploaded to our YOUTUBE CHANNEL. Here you will find musicians, who have contributed from all over the world -India, Afghanistan, Poland, Austria, Germany, Switzerland,France, The Netherlands, Beglium, UK, Ireland, Canada but also we had refugee musicians joining to show their culture and music. So please do have a look.

But we still need your help:

There are refugees all over the world, who need our help during these tough times of COVID-19 pandemic.

How can they stay home,

 when they have no home?

How can do wash their hands with soap, 

when they have no water? 

How can they maintain social distance, 

when they share a tent with 20 people?

How can they wear a mask, 

when there are not enough to distribute?

But we can do something by making a donation. Here is a fundraising campaign to help raise money for refugees who have been affected by the COVID pandemic. We particularly want to help refugee children from Chechnya who are now struggling to learn and continue their education, due to the lack of laptop facilities, since all schooling has become online. We need to raise money TO BUY MORE LAPTOPS for these children. This is done in collaboration with the foundation - Dom Otwarty (http://domotwarty.org/wordpress/)

We ask for your help and understanding, to help us achieve our goal during these very tumultuous times. Refugees and migrants are unfortunately a marginalised community that does not easily receive help, from authorities and therefore it is up to us and NGOs to extend this help. But we cannot do this without your help...so if you have a couple of pennies to spare; even 10$ would make a huge difference.

With sincere thanks

Sindhuja Sankaran, Founder

(on behalf of the team Rethinking Refugees)