Lately, I have collaborated with the Hochschule Konstanz University of Applied Sciences (HTWG) to document an ambitious semester long project aiming to integrate the new community of refugees and asylum seekers in our society with the young generation. SHELTERS is born out of a cooperation between the region Baden-Württemberg in Germany and the region Dohuk in North Iraq, directed to develop projects in the fields of Arquitecture and Design to find solutions for a better community with the community itself. Throughout the project term, men and women from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan were invited to take part on workshops at the University in order to provide them basic tools within an activity and share feedback with students and professors.
I was brought to the project at the second half of its term so I got to be in contact mostly with women at the sewing workshop. In a matter of days, I saw these women having a first contact with these tools - since most of them never worked or had an activity before - learning how does it work to simply follow the steps to produce something, until the point they are coming to us with their sewed rocks, bag packs or wallets, proud to show what they just made by their own. At the end of the project it was incredibly grateful to see our motto taking action and realize how creativity goes beyond any difference of gender, culture or race.
The documented video was ordered for exposure and promotion purposes to reach further support for development of the project. Though further documented footage as interviews to the women and their stories told will be released at the official launch of SHELTERS´s website, by mid April.
