Social inclusion of refugees: How education contributes to integration. Case study of Open Cultural Center (OCC) in Northern Greece

Abstract

This paper seeks to give ethnographic evidence of the role played by informal education when involved with asylum seekers. With the purpose of working “with” the community where the researcher is living, in the following pages I illustrate some situations I lived while working in the NGO called Open Cultural Center in the North of Greece. Knowledge, power, community and networks are some of the tools used to illustrate how an anthropologist working in this context can promote processes of concrete experimentation of daily life social integration.

Dear people who will read my thesis and the experience which I am trying to share. I am currently in a 7000 inhabitants town in the north of Greece, just few kilometers away from the border with Macedonia. I am volunteering for two months in an NGO called Open Cultural Center (OCC) which collaborates with the EU through a channel called European Solidarity Corps. While I am writing, I am seated at the so-called “cafeteria”, the reception space of OCC where everyday people from the nearby refugee camp of Nea Kavala come to attend our language courses in the morning or the children's classes in the afternoon. The cafeteria is a colorful place full of details: draws, graffiti, books, board games, a big table, a green sofa and a welcoming area where there is always tea or coffee for everybody and internet access. OCC is a cultural center (potentially open to everybody, and not only to the people of the camp) which works for the inclusion of migrants and refugees through non-formal education and cultural activities. The place where the activities are hosted really gets alive when crowded with different cultures and countries. It gives me the impression of a safe space, where despite the journey, daily life discrimination and struggles people can come to relax, to find again the humanity they have lost on the move. As soon as you get involved in OCC you realize that the project goes far beyond informal education but contributes to a sense of community, inclusion and social transformation. The reason why I came here was to experience on my skin and with my eyes what we are talking about when we refer to the “migration crisis”, how the category of refugees are really stigmatized and if education is a tool to foster integration. Being here for some weeks gave me the chance to become aware of many challenges and daily struggles such as bureaucratic labyrinths, accommodation issues and labor exploitation.