Day 4: Forum Theatre, picture discussion and visit to AWO migration service Hannover

For Day 4 our bloggers were: Alex (Romania), Steliana (Bulgaria) and Marika (Estonia). I planned the Forum Theatre activity, for which two groups had to write a play about a given plot. Both groups had to act out their plays and the audience is allowed to intervene in the second round of playing the drama. It is a proven method (Check Wikipedia etc.), however I think that the groups need at least two hours of time to write a play, otherwise it is missing depth....anyway, here is what our blogging group says:

In Forum theatre we learned about problems immigrants and tourists come across and that if you see something and think it`s wrong if you intervene you can solve it.

Sometimes the worker in the immigration office does not behave in a humane way, for example they don`t give enough advise and help for the immigrants. If the officer puts his self in the immigrant situation then he will understand and he will become more humane and the story might have a different ending. We also understood from the theatre activity that you as an immigrant you don`t belong anywhere and you often feel that you are a refugee from society.

For an immigrant it is important to learn the language because it`s an internal code to this culture, it is a bridge between the immigrant and the new society. Often immigrants come to other countries and maybe they don`t know all the rules, searching someone to give advise but no one wants to help, or it`s hard to find someone that is ready to help.

In the photo activity we saw different pictures (every delegation from each country had to bring five picutres that describe the situation of immigration in the country) and we learnt that usually the immigrant thought that he will have a better life, but when they are here they might face a cultural shock, or they may have language barriers, which brings them to build a new society inside the guest society (“ghettoisation”).

We could understand from today activities three main points:

• that some immigrants feel that they don`t belong anywhere, and hard for them to be accepted from the home citizen.
• One theory that was uttered was the following: It depends where immigrants come from. For example if a European citizen from a rich country goes to another country that has a weak economy then you will be accepted from the first second and she/he gets quickly integrated. If the opposite happens then they have to work hard to be integrated.
• Immigrants and home citizens people can be a team and work together efficiently to reach success. Often, the host countries need the immigrants as a workforce to increase their economy.

Our visit to AWO migration Hannover organization gave us more information that in Germany the immigrants have a chance to get integrated in the society using different activities like free German language courses, counseling and other different projects. We have seen how important is to have organizations like AWO in another countries to make the situation easier for immigrants.