The students of the welcome classroom of the Vall d’Hebron Institute have carried out the project Synchronize yourself, energized by the entity El Parlante, to work on their migration processes through photography
Fear: Victoria Oliveres
When the educators of El Parlante asked a group of students in a shelter classroom to bring an object that was representative for them, Julia immediately had it clear: a miniature plane. “I chose it because it is the means of transport I used to return to live with my mother,” says the 14-year-old. Julia’s mother migrated from Honduras to Barcelona and it was not until two years later that she was able to take her husband and children to the Catalan capital.
This migratory process left its mark on Julia, like many of her colleagues in the reception classroom at Vall d’Hebron Institute, although they do not talk about it very often. Therefore, from El Parlante quisieron sacar forward the project Synchronization, which works the reality of migrations through a photography workshop. “We felt that emotions, migrations and grief are not worked on much in the classroom, although it is the natural place where these issues should be addressed”, explains Alfredo Cohen, coordinator of El Parlante.
During the workshop, which was conducted by twelve students for two months, they learned to operate a camera and also the photographic techniques to make portraits and self-portraits. From there, the challenge was to photograph themselves with an element with which they felt a link. “We ask them to carry an object that identifies them, without ever talking about migration, but the vast majority of students chose objects that, more or less clearly, were related to their migration process”, explains Pancho, one of the educators who carried out the project. Each student presented to the group the object that they had betrayed and with which they were then photographed. “At first it was a little complicated to focus on the project, but when we gave them the cameras, the attitude changed, because they understood that they could sack provency”, explains Marta, audiovisual technician at El Parlante. “It was a very chaotic group but when they came and explained their experience with the object, everyone was attentive and sincere,” adds Pancho.
“I expected something simpler, but I am very proud of everything we have achieved”, explains Julia, “the most difficult thing has been to open myself to others, to show who I really am”.
Precisely, the idea of El Parlante’s methodology lies in using technological devices to tell stories. “And telling stories serves to sake our emotions and to give us the realization that other people go through the same processes,” Cohen says. “The camera alone does not generate empathy, but it is an excuse to organize stories that end up connecting people,” he adds. Now, the photographs taken by the students will be exhibited at the school and the videos resulting from the project will be shown in the different classes. “At first I respected being seen at school, but now I have understood that this way people will be able to know me as they are,” says Julia. Another intention of the project is that everyone can listen to the stories of these young people and this “favors communication and breaks clichés and stereotypes”, says Pancho.
No space to work on migratory mourning
“In the reception classroom there are young people from very different backgrounds with teachers who, with all their will, do not have the tools or time to face their emotions and experiences with the care they need”, explains Alfredo Cohen. Sandra Monfort, social educator at the institute, agrees with him: “they must have a space where they can elaborate what it means to come from another country and meet other colleagues who have gone through the same process”. Sometimes we try but the reception classroom must be for all academic topics”, adds Paola Acuña, tutor of this classroom. “On the other hand, here they have had space to speak loudly about the fact that they are all immigrants, which is something that does not happen at school because they want to integrate quickly, to be like the others”.
Knowing the work they did in the Speaker, from high school they got in touch to work on the needs of a center like his, where there is a lot of living enrollment and many teenagers newly arrived. They have managed to frame this project within ‘the institute full time’, that is, which is an activity that takes place outside the school schedule but within the spaces of the institute.
“My hope is that the administrations do not forget that we have this type of student body and that we do not run out of budget, because it is very important”, says Acuña. “Many people complain that migrant teenagers have no way out, but maybe if we invested more in welcoming them, then they would see more clearly that they could have a bright future like so many others.”
“Fotografiarse para compartir el duelo migratorio” was originally published, in Catalan and Spanish, in Catalunya Plural and the Diari de l’Educació.