#1 Salome Mbugua & Melanie Lynch

Salome & Melanie by Szabolcs Karikó

Parallel Story #1

Salome Mbugua & Melanie Lynch

Kenya & Ireland

This parallel story was put forward by Herstory and AkiDwA for Movement

Salome and Melanie have been shaped and influenced by their experiences of migration, education, peace, and women’s empowerment. Born and raised in Kenya, Salome Mbugua has always held a deep passion for education and peace. It was the opportunity for further study that brought her to Ireland in 1994 where she quickly became involved in youth work and women’s organisations. In 2001, Salome founded AkiDwA - Ireland’s first national migrant women’s organisation which celebrates its 20th anniversary this year. Melanie Lynch, born and raised in Ireland, grew up to stories of familial migration and attended a multicultural school in rural Ireland where difference was celebrated. Like Salome, she migrated for further study and worked in the UK and France before she found herself in Kenya where soul searching lead to a new career direction. Returning to Ireland, she founded Herstory, a women’s empowerment movement that tells the stories of modern, historic, and mythic women.

Salome’s story is first. To skip to Melanie’s click here.

---

Salome’s Story

TW; violence, rape, exploitation

‘Educate a woman and you educate a nation’ - this popular African proverb was a driving force of my father’s legacy. He made sure all my sisters and I were well educated and additionally, are independent. Growing up, we witnessed him transferring property to my mother and he also put her in charge and control of his coffee plantation, which was unheard of, especially in rural areas. He believed that education has no limit. I hold a Master’s in Equality Studies from UCD and have just finished my Doctorate at Trinity College Dublin in International Peace Studies. This was in line with his vision that education has no age limit.

After my secondary schooling, I worked as a teacher in one of the driest parts of Kenya- Baringo district where we had to walk for over six kilometres to fetch water. I lived with wild animals and snakes but persevered until I started college to do social work, a journey that brought the reality of life, especially during my field placement where I worked with women in the largest slum in Kenya. 70% of the women whom I worked with were head of their households, sole providers for their family. They lived destitute lives in poor conditions. Many girls were involved in prostitution for survival to feed their families. After my studies, I was lucky to get a job with the organisation which had offered me work placement. My advocacy and campaign work for change and challenging inequality began here. We advocated for an end to the exploitation of the girl child. Many girls were missing from school due to poverty and because their parent couldn’t afford to keep them in school. Even though primary education is free in Kenya, these children had turned to street begging and men were taking advantage of them. My role was to get them off the street, put them back into school and work towards re-integrating them with their parents. While this job was quite rewarding in terms of actions taken, it was exhausting and quite often I was intimidated by the men. I remember one time we took a case where two men had held five girls captive for weeks, sexually exploiting them, and when the day of the hearing arrived, the men used bribery and were let go without being sentenced. These girls never received justice and their lives were destroyed. It was heart breaking to have 7-, 8- and 12-year-old girls being diagnosed with HIV after contracting it on the street. We buried two of them during my three years as a social worker. I too suffered in the slums to the extent that I personally experienced police brutality and ended up in hospital. Working in Nairobi was dangerous and risky but the issues affecting women and girls were real.

After three years working as a social worker, I got the opportunity to study in Ireland. As devoted Catholics growing up, our house was used as a place of worship since we didn’t have a church. An Irish priest from Mayo had been our priest for many years and had become a friend of the family. It’s this same priest who helped me to secure a scholarship to study in Ireland. When I arrived in 1994, many people mistook me to be a nun. I had a long braid and I used to wear a long chain with a cross. My assumption before I left Kenya was that everyone in Ireland was Catholic, and I wanted to belong. I quickly became connected to women’s groups and youth programmes in Ireland, including St Michael’s Family Resource Centre, Inchicore where I had student placement, and a Foroige club in Cork.

Salome. Credit: The Irish Times

I returned to Kenya in 1995 and in 1996 I moved to Uganda and joined my fiancée from Ireland whom I had met during the course of my study. Here, I worked as a gender equality officer. Life for women in Uganda was completely different. I met with impoverished rural women in the Rakai district of Kyotera County; many women, especially grandmothers, were taking care of large numbers of their grandchildren after these kids lost their parent to HIV/AIDs. I worked with women to establish a community-based organisation, Women Enterprises Association of Rakai (WEAR), which was formed to address the social and economic effects of HIV/AIDS and poverty in rural Uganda. This way women were able to access small loans and establish a better way of selling their agricultural products. The growth of WEAR from 13 to 327 members and 22 regional groups proved to be a successful model which I later used in Ireland in the establishment AkiDwA (1) - the migrant women’s network Ireland.

In 1998, after returning to live permanently in Ireland, I couldn’t find a job that matched my qualification, so I took up care work of the elderly in Dalkey. I enjoyed doing this work, it reminded me of my early days – when I was 7, I had been awarded to my grandmother to help with taking care of my grandfather who had become paralysed and couldn’t do anything for himself. I found a job which was closer to my social work skills in the same year, working with young indigenous boys with challenging behaviour in a home in the north inner city of Dublin. One boy nicknamed me ‘my African mother’ and during my visit to Kenya in 1999 he requested that I bring him back an elephant. It was during this period that I met a nun who introduced me to the Sisters of Mercy, who helped support the establishment of AkiDwA. I was very excited to see many women (Africans) in the streets of Dublin that I could identify with, quite often I stopped them to have conversations. After I was introduced to Sr Joan McManus of the Catherine McAuley Centre in 2001, AkiDwA came to be.

Credit: NWCI

Now, AkiDwA has over 2500 individual members from 42 countries of origin and 36 organisation affiliates and is a representative body for migrant women, irrespective of their national/ethnic background, legal status, religion etc. The organisation has become a leading advocate and authoritative voice for migrant women living in Ireland and has been influencing policy on different areas of migrant life, specifically on the establishment of the Female Genital Mutilation Act 2012 and policy on health, gender-based violence and access to services. In 2003, after families were presenting to AkiDwA with fears of deportation, I brought legal and community groups together to form the CADIC (a coalition to advocate for the rights of Irish children and their families), and in January 2005 the Irish Born Child Scheme was introduced by the Department of Justice. After campaigning for months, 17,000 parents and their children were given the right to reside in Ireland. In 2009 I undertook research on the impact of Direct Provision on women asylum seekers in Ireland. A report was produced and launched in 2010, I am Only Saying it Now, Experiences of Women Seeking Asylum in Ireland. I’ve used this report to lobby for change with policy makers and service providers over the years and the report was referenced in the McMahon report on Direction Provision in 2018. We’ve also worked with the Department of Foreign Affairs in the development, monitoring and review of Ireland’s first National Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security, the United Nations Resolution 1325 and in the development of the second National Action Plan, launched in 2015. In 2018, I was appointed by the Tánaiste to chair the working group developing the third National Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security. In 2007 I spoke alongside Mary Robinson, former President of Ireland, in an international conference. I have presented at the Dail several times as well as at the European parliament.

This year (2020) I contested for Senate, a strange and tough route that I wanted to try. I believe that if you’re not at the table where the matters are being discussed you’ll be the agenda as an item for discussion. Meaningful change happens when one is at the top of the change they want to see. I had previously been elected the Vice-Chairperson of the National Women Council of Ireland in 2010 and I served in that capacity for four years. My appointment as a Commissioner for Irish human rights in 2018 saw me lead a delegation to Geneva to appear at the UN committee on elimination of all forms of racial discrimination.

My mission work in Africa remains the most ambitious to be accomplished. I’m always looking to give hope and work to those who’re living in the margins of society. My concern has always been women who aren’t able to escape violence and gender-based violence. In 2010 I co-founded Wezesha - an initiative of African Diaspora for international development. In Kenya I’ve been working with women in the slums of Nairobi developing strategies on combatting repeated cycles of poverty and together with a group of 26 women from Majengo slums, the women, through savings, have been able to buy land in a rural part of Kenya where they hope they can move to in the future. Through mobilisation, fundraising efforts and the support of Irish people, we’ve been able to purchase land where the women aim to establish a multipurpose centre to provide different types of services from training and counselling to peace-building. The work continues.

[1] Akina Dada Wa Africa, Swahili for sisterhood.

---

Melanie’s Story

My life has been a journey migrating through physical and psychological borders. I crave the liminal - the space between worlds - beyond polarities where reality and the great truths exist. I choose to be an outsider. From this viewpoint multiple perspectives can be accessed simultaneously and humanity can be experienced in its glorious diversity. Life becomes an adventure, an open book, and I’m all the richer for it.

Like every person on this planet, migration is in my blood. As a 10 year old I would voyage by bicycle across Dublin with my father to buy Jewish bread from Bretzel Bakery on Lennox Street. Our Jewish ancestors immigrated to Ireland from France and this weekly ritual kept their memory and tradition alive. On my mother’s side, our great-grandparents were Northern Irish Catholics who had no choice but to move to the Republic to escape discrimination and find work. Some ancestors migrated across the division of religion to marry Protestants. The heart knows no boundaries. If only we listened to it more.

At a family reunion in Fermanagh we retraced our humble ancestral lineage through seven generations who endured the famine and the Troubles. A few ancestors emigrated to America and sent money home, transforming the trajectory and fortune of future generations. Two centuries later, their bravery and generosity has impacted on my access to education and career opportunities. I’m baffled by the attitude that immigrants are expected to be highly skilled with university education. How quick the Irish are to forget our history of emigration and the opportunities our ancestors received abroad that Ireland couldn’t offer at the time.

As a teenager I got a glimpse of the potential for a thriving multicultural Ireland.  At Wilson’s Hospital School, students descended from six continents (with the exception of Antarctica and the Arctic!) to this progressive school perched on a hilltop in the middle of rural Ireland.  Every week the postbox filled with letters and parcels from 29 countries around the world. From China to Mexico, we were all outsiders, even the Irish.  As a Catholic I was an outsider in a Protestant school and the Protestants are a minority in the south. Being an outsider was a bizarrely liberating experience. There was no pressure to fit in to a constructed ‘normal’ because it didn’t exist. In this melting pot environment the question: “Where are you from?” was never racist. Our curiosity and respect for other faiths and cultures was genuine. We thrived in this Church of Ireland ethos. Difference was celebrated. There was unity in our diversity.

After a year dabbling in maths and philosophy at Trinity College Dublin I migrated to art college in the UK. There I was taken under the wing of African students who regaled our common histories and shared kindred spirits with the Irish. This was big kudos as they hosted the best parties and told extraordinary stories of adventures on the world’s most diverse continent. The outsiders became the insiders.

A theory tutor sparked my interest with his infectious passion for African-American music and its influence on the civil rights movement. During Obama’s historic presidential campaign I penned my degree thesis on deconstructing colonial ideologies and racial stereotyping. It was an insomnia-inducing process, delving into the dark recesses of the Imperial British psyche as it invented toxic propaganda and crude stereotypes to justify colonisation, slavery and world domination. I was so disturbed by what I uncovered that I honestly thought I would fail my thesis, so it was some shock when my paper was awarded the highest grade in the faculty. The experience still haunts me to this day. If the origins of racism were taught in school there would be no racism. Twelve years later, our new Movement project is the creative realisation of this research and we have developed an education programme to foster diversity and inclusion in schools.  

After graduation I emigrated to London and then Paris where I lived the Mad Men dream creating advertising campaigns for NGOs and global brands. I was trained to explore universal insights and our shared humanity. Diverse cultures have been converging in these great cities for centuries and the mélange of influences is inspirational catnip for the creative soul.

Sveva Gallmann with a local tribeswoman

In 2014 I found myself in Kenya, where some soul searching sparked a new career direction that would enable me to apply my creativity and communications skills for the good of humanity. After a safari holiday with college friends I volunteered at the Gallmann Mukutan Conservancy on the edge of the Great Rift Valley. I have never felt so alive waking up to lions and black mambas in the garden. Serendipitously I got the opportunity to work on the 4 Generations Project, a founding inspiration for Herstory and an ingenious education programme developed to preserve tribal cultures.

Kuki Gallmann with local tribes at the Gallmann Mukutan Conservancy

I’ll never forget the day when the chef pointed to my white skin and questioned: “ Muzungu (white person in Swahili) which colony are you from?” To his surprise I responded; “I’m Irish, my tribe is Celtic and my ancestors survived 800 years of British colonial rule.” That day the locals gave me the Swahili nickname ‘Black-maned Lioness’ and adopted me as one of their own.

The conservancy was surrounded by neighbouring communities of Samburu, Pokot, Kalenji and Kikuyu people. I envied the tribes people for their rootedness to the earth. They are not slaves to the greed of capitalism or the narcissism pandemic of selfie culture. Instead they live by the fundamentals of what it means to be human: family, community, nature, creativity, storytelling and spirituality. In their eyes I saw great depth and presence. Spending time in their company made me question the definition of civilization. How utterly wrong the colonisers were to paint these people as inferior and primitive. In the West there’s much talk about saving Africa. My question is “How can Africa save the West?”

Melanie lighting up the GPO in honour of Irish Somali activist Ifrah Ahmed for the 2020 Herstory Light Festival by Dodeca

I have been an immigrant and an emigrant. Herstory wouldn’t exist without these formative and expansive experiences. Since the beginning migration has been a core theme. In the early days Bard Mythologies introduced me to Cessair, the first mythological woman in Ireland who was an immigrant, as recorded in The Book of Invasions. Sandy Dunlop, co-founder of Bard Mythologies explains that ‘Cessair’s epic voyage across the known world from Sudan to Ireland makes Homer’s Odyssey look tame.’ In modern history, the heroines of the RTÉ Herstory TV series and Blazing A Trail exhibition had to emigrate to realise their potential. Many were Irish refugees, forced to emigrate and escape poverty in Ireland.

The Herstory and AkiDwA teams

On Herstory’s first birthday in 2017 I visited AkiDwA to celebrate the launch of Africa Rising and hear the stories of migrant women who have joined our communities from distant shores. This was my first encounter with the phenomenal Salome Mbugua, Founder of AkiDwA, researcher, gender equality activist and human rights advocate. A Kenyan with a huge heart, Salome is one of my greatest heroines. She’s so busy getting on with her job that she never gets the credit or spotlight she deserves. This year Herstory will collaborate with AkiDwA to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Ireland’s first migrant women’s organization. 

Migration is one of the few constants of the human experience. We are a migratory species. Homo sapiens have been travelling across the world long before the invention of the wheel. National Geographic maps reveal the extensive migration routes of our prehistoric ancestors. Diversity is not a modern buzzword. This is an ancient truth. The pandemic is a reminder that borders and nationalities are fabrications that conceal our common humanity.  

Ireland has one of the greatest Diasporas in the world with 70 million people cherishing their Irish roots worldwide. However, the Irish migration story is marked by successes and struggles. We know only too well what it feels like to be excluded, stereotyped and discriminated against. As Mary McAleese once said; “We are a vibrant first world country but we have a humbling third world memory.”

In these divisive times it’s easy to forget that immigration and emigration are two sides of the same story. It’s only right that we open our doors and our hearts to the New Irish and give them the opportunities our ancestors received around the world. If Ireland has the greatest diaspora we should be the most compassionate, inclusive country in the world.

DISCOVER MORE ABOUT THE MOVEMENT PROJECT

Early human migration map by the National Geographic

The content of this publication is the sole responsibility of Herstory and does not necessarily reflect the position of the Anna Lindh Foundation or the European Union. www.annalindhfoundation.org

#2 Razan Ibraheem & Sr Lena Deevy

Razan & Sr Lena by Magdalena Blazejewicz

Parallel Story #2

Razan Ibraheem & Sr Lena Deevy

Syria & Ireland

This parallel story was put forward by Herstory and AkiDwA for Movement

Born and raised in Syria, Razan Ibraheem emigrated to Ireland in 2011 for further education but became a refugee when war broke out in Syria and she could no longer return home. She has dedicated years to speaking out about the conflict in Syria and works as a journalist who identifies misleading information and debunks fake news. Sr. Lena Deevy was born and raised in Ireland and it was to train as a nurse that she left for North Wales in 1960. She emigrated then to America where she became the Director of the Irish Immigrant Centre. Under Lena’s leadership the center developed into a place inclusive of all immigrants from all walks of life.

Razan’s story is first. To skip to Lena’s story click here.

---

Razan’s Story

I was born in a Mediterranean city near the Turkish border. Like any other Syrian city, it’s diverse and full of energy. It’s also known for its culture, the music and tasty food. Syria was safe during my childhood. I was a street child, a tomboy! As I grew up, I started to change and discover who I was. I’m still discovering myself today. I graduated from High School and did English literature. That was one of the turning points in my life – it opened my eyes because through literature I learned about other cultures and societies. I learned about Syrian, Arabic, Muslim, and Christian cultures in addition to different cultures from the West. I even studied Irish literature like the work of James Joyce, Bernard Shaw, and Samuel Beckett. After that I did a Diploma in Education in Syria. I wanted to continue my studies after, so I worked abroad to save money. My parents were teachers, so our family regarded education as highly important. Inspired by them I became a teacher myself for eleven years. Eventually I saved enough, and I travelled to Ireland. 

I’d already studied Irish literature, and I wanted to go to the best school in English Language Teaching, so after exploring options, Limerick University came back as one of the best universities doing this course. Ireland and Syria share similarities and differences like many places. Land and owning a house are important in Syrian culture, like in Ireland. The family bond is another similarity. There’s also a love for culture, music, and art here. I’d say though that Syrian culture is more diverse, you could go from neighbourhood to neighbourhood and it can be very different in its culture. This is down to different languages, religions, migration etc. That’s why, when I look at the war, I can’t comprehend what is happening now. We had an inclusive society - we had our problems like any country – but when I look at my homeland now, it’s a country I just don’t know. A stranger.

I haven’t been back to Syria since I left in 2011. I can’t tell you how much I dream of the day when I can go back. I never imagined I’d stay in Ireland. My plan was to finish my studies, go back home and start up my own language school – but circumstances were against me and against millions of Syrians. Things changed. So, I decided to stay. It was hard but when I look back, I believe it was the right decision. I’m lucky. It’s been such a positive experience living and working in Ireland. I met the most amazing people whom I’ve learned a lot from. There were challenges, especially at the start, like finding work and accommodation. Integration was another challenge. I believe integration isn’t one-sided. It’s mutual understanding and communication between the hosting society and the newcomers. It’s having all people engage with each other. It’s creating a healthy society where people can express themselves and respect and understand their differences. Learning and speaking the language of the new home is crucial to help people integrate faster. Work and education and social and cultural events are also important. 

Another turning point in my life came when I went to Greece in 2015. I was working in social media and I was exposed to these images and stories of people fleeing wars 24 hours a day, people I recognized sometimes, people from my neighbourhood! I was watching all the time and I felt so drained and powerless and I thought – what can I do? I knew I needed to help refugees arrive to safe shores. So, I went to Greece. I volunteered for around ten days – and every day we used to wake at about 2am and go to the beach with binoculars to watch refugees arriving. If we identified any boats coming, we would run to them and give the people food, clothes, water – whatever they needed. The heart-breaking thing was when they arrived, sometimes you’d hear a mother screaming ‘my child! Where’s my child?’ – when they would realise one member of the family was missing. For me, to see the reality of what was happening was important – seeing people as human beings and not just as numbers and ‘refugees.’ At that time, Greece was a transitional country but now the camps are like detention centres. 

When the image of the three-year old boy, Aylan Kurdi, washed up on a beach, circulated on social media, we saw a turning point in refugee narrative. There was more of an emphasis on highlighting what was happening on the ground with refugees. But then we started to see key words like refugees ‘flooding’ - a flood is something that implies danger, that causes destruction. The media started to use these terms and if there was one negative story then that became the focus of the media and they would neglect the positive ones, and this was really damaging. The media dehumanised refugees and made them a category of people, not people. They also started using the word ‘immigrants’ to describe refugees – but they aren’t immigrants, they’re refugees! An immigrant is someone who chooses to leave their homeland and travels to another country for work, an adventure etc. A refugee is forced to leave for safety. They’re escaping persecution and death. 

What people in Syria are facing now is worse than anything you could imagine, it’s the biggest humanitarian crisis since World War II. Half the population have lost their homes. People don’t have food, water, or heating. There are families living in caves right now and there are women burning plastic to provide heat for their children. There’s no milk or clean water. There’s no mention of what’s happening in the media.

Razan at the UN

Seeing what’s happening in Syria is very hard. When I came back from Greece I was depressed for a while. I thought ‘I have a roof and a warm bed. But what about those people?’ I didn’t leave my room for a week. But after that, I thought ‘Razan, wake up. If I stay like this in my room and do nothing, then what have I learned? What benefit am I to these people?’ I decided I couldn’t stay silent in my bedroom, these stories should be told and heard. I started to speak about it and do interviews and just tried my best to highlight what’s going on. Then I was invited to speak at the UN in Geneva, to talk about my experience in Greece and to be the voice of the people I’d met. They held a conference about providing safe pathways for refugees. It was a call to think outside the box.

In 2016 I received an email from Irish Tatler nominating me as Woman of the Year. I couldn’t believe it. It’s been one of the biggest honours of my life. But it’s not just for me, it’s for Syrian women who are suffering and neglected, who are double victims – victims of the patriarchal society and of the war. They come from war and death, they pull their children from the rubble and watch their children die, but they’re still holding the family together and trying to get a better future for their kids. So, I dedicated it to Syrian women and their resilience. It was a great honour and opportunity to speak about these women.

Razan accepting her Irish Tatler’s Woman of the Year Award

These days, I’m a journalist and I work on verifying content on social media and detect misinformation and disinformation spreading on the platforms. I’m involved in many projects such as community sponsorships in Ireland as well. I am on the Amnesty National Board and I participate in several talks and projects for refugees, women’s issues etc. It’s busy but this is who I am, and it’s what I love to do. I have so much energy and I want to use it. I try my best.

---

Lena’s Story

I was born in Laois in 1942– the sixth of seven children. My father, Michael, had emigrated from Kilkenny to New York in his late teens and worked in a variety of unskilled jobs.  I recall him summing up his determination in this rhyme: ‘Life is a test, give of your best, fight with your back to the wall. Never say die, laugh and don’t cry, get up again if you fall.’ Surely, the mantra of many immigrants in those very tough times. With the ongoing Great Depression, he lost his job. Fortunately, he’d saved enough that he was able to buy a farm in Ireland. Shortly after returning he married a fellow Kilkenny person, Mary Condren, a nurse. She became the local midwife, was much loved in the community and was a great homemaker.

Growing up, my father told us stories about families being evicted and dying in workhouses. This left him with a fear of not being able to pay the bills, so his focus was on making enough money to give us the opportunities he hadn’t had. We all worked in the house or on the farm and had little time for socializing except for annual visits to relatives. Both parents were deeply religious and strictly observant Catholics. My mother’s love and non-judgemental attitude as she discreetly provided clothes and food to those in need really inspired me. Her example shaped my future choices. My father’s avid interest in politics and concern about the discrimination against Catholics in the North inspired my passion for the rights of those excluded from society.

In 1960 I went to Wales to train as a nurse. That’s where I first became aware of racism and discrimination. I remember the racist comments about a student nurse from Jamaica. And I recall an English colleague mocking my accent because I didn’t pronounce my th’s, which made me extremely self-conscious about speaking in public. After qualifying I joined an international religious order, the Little Sisters of the Assumption (LSAs). Its mission was to work with and empower the poorest families. I was introduced to Liberation Theology, a philosophy combining the Christian message with an understanding of the socio-economic conditions that cause poverty, conflict, and oppression. This increased my awareness of discrimination against the Traveling people in Ireland, as well as injustices against peoples worldwide. By the 1970s I was working in a recently developed high-rise housing project on the northside of Dublin, Ballymun. It was a great opportunity to be part of building a new community for young families who had been displaced from poor housing in Dublin’s inner city.

In 1988 I got an opportunity to take a break from the work. My brother lived in Massachusetts, and the LSA were in Boston so it seemed an obvious choice for a year’s sabbatical. I was in my 40’s when I emigrated, and it was an opportunity to learn new skills. I was accepted into the Harvard School of Education where I embarked on research into the experiences of undocumented Irish immigrants. Though living on the edge of great possibility they also lived an underground existence with great fears of deportation, illness, no work, or exploitation at work, unplanned pregnancy, fear of travel etc. As part of my research, I interviewed the founding members of the fledgling Irish Immigration Centre (now RIAN) and was recruited to the team.  In 1990, the year I was due to return to Ireland, I was invited to become the IIC’s first Executive Director. I took the job with mixed feelings because I knew Boston would now become my home and I would only be seeing family and friends on occasional visits to Ireland. Travel was more expensive then as were phone calls. The following year, when my eldest brother sadly died by suicide my family could not track me down. Thankfully, I got home for the funeral, but the experience made the plight of undocumented immigrants very real for me.

The early days of the IIC were exciting, but our resources were small, so I cleaned houses to pay my way.  We embraced all expressions of Irishness – gay or straight, Protestant or Catholic, unionist or nationalist… it didn’t matter. Our approach gradually attracted immigrants from other backgrounds as we developed immigration legal clinics and other services to meet the needs of immigrants, especially the undocumented. I was in a Haiti justice group at the time, so I knew that, while the Irish were treated very badly, there was no comparison to the way Haitians were treated by the system. The darker your skin the more likely you were to be questioned by immigration officials and deported. At the IIC we developed anti-racism programs for staff and volunteers to become aware of our unconscious biases, how we benefit from white privilege and ways to address racism as we slowly moved to be an inclusive organization.

Integration was a tough issue to negotiate though. Our efforts elicited praise from some Irish but derision from others who questioned us helping these other people, when there were many Irish needing our help. I was in a big meeting one time and there was a group of Irish people there who were very annoyed that the Irish Immigrant Centre was considering working and lobbying for legislation that was inclusive of all undocumented immigrants. I told them that we can’t isolate ourselves, we must work together. That didn’t go down well and I and some of the IIC staff were called traitors. But I’m a strong believer that it’s not either or, it’s both and. We must recognize that we’re all equal people on this journey of life and that we all have so much to learn from and give to one another.

In 2005 I was chosen for a fellowship by the Barr Fellows Program, a foundation that honours the most remarkable and experienced non-profit leaders in Boston, by giving them an opportunity to connect with and learn from non-profit leaders in very different settings globally.  One of the organizers called it --a disruptive immersive learning journey --and it truly was! I found myself in Zimbabwe, staying in the home of a woman dying of AIDS; and also in Haiti, living with a woman and her child in a home with no running water – despite me having no Creole or French, and she no English, we still managed to communicate. It was humbling to witness the survival skills of families living in extreme poverty and constant fear of conflict or displacement. 

While I valued living in a diverse society like America my growing awareness of systemic racism and understanding of my white privilege brought home the gross inequality in the country I had come to love. I retired from the IIC in 2013 and returned to Ireland in 2014. In my role as coordinator of the LSA Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation program I’ve come to understand the fundamental link between climate change and the displacement of peoples. Also, the gross injustice of the Direct Provision System; the denial of citizenship to babies born to undocumented mothers living in Ireland is an ongoing concern. But I’m so inspired by the great work of so many immigrant-led organizations like AkiDwA. I’m blessed with an optimistic outlook in life; my motto is ‘Bloom where you are planted.’   

DISCOVER MORE ABOUT THE MOVEMENT PROJECT

Artist Info

Magdalena Blazejewicz

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/artpaintinghg/

Insta: @magdalena_blazejewicz

Website: www.magdalenablazejewicz.com

The content of this publication is the sole responsibility of Herstory and does not necessarily reflect the position of the Anna Lindh Foundation or the European Union. www.annalindhfoundation.org

#3 Gonchigkhand Byambaa & Briege Kearney

Gonchigkhand and Briege by Rebecca Lively

Parallel Story #3

Gonchigkhand Byambaa & Briege Kearney

Mongolia & Northern Ireland

This parallel story was put forward by Herstory and AkiDwA for Movement

Gonchigkhand Byambaa grew up in the North-Western Mongolian countryside in a traditional nomadic family where the land belonged to everyone. There were no fences and mother nature was respected and appreciated always. After marrying an Irish man, she moved to Ireland where she has been working with various migrant rights’ groups to help translate and share information with the Mongolian-Irish community. Growing up in Northern Ireland during the Troubles, Briege Kearney experienced conflict, discrimination and displacement on a daily basis. As a teenager she emigrated to the UK to escape the conflict, and then to the USA where she worked in the Northern Ireland Consulate. While both women experienced very different childhoods, their lives were impacted massively by the land and their place on it, and both went on to work with migrants and aspects of migration in their new homes.

---

Gonchigkhand’s Story

I was born in the North-Western Mongolian countryside. I am the youngest of 4 girls and my family are nomadic. My father was a horse wrangler, and my mom was a milkmaid for the Soviet Union.  I grew up as a traditional nomadic girl in a portable, round yurt which is called a ger in Mongolian. My parents taught me how to live and survive alongside nature during the hot summers and freezing winters (in unforgiving nature and disasters). I grew up with horses. I learned to ride at the age of 5 and from then on helped my dad to tame and herd the wild horses. I learned make a bond and communicate with them. Horses were my friends, teachers, guardians yet also adversaries at the same time. Horses and cows were our wealth, transport, pride, and food supply.

Our lifestyle was very different from western culture. We didn’t have fencing on our land. The land belongs to everyone. Our cows, sheep, goats, and horses were free to go anywhere. We herded them all day and only in the evening did the animals come home. Where I grew up wolves and other predators always challenged us. During summertime my sisters and I used to sleep outside near our home to guard the sheep. I learned to read my animals’ behaviour to the weather and other danger warnings. Nomadic people respect mother nature, and we are grateful for its offerings. Because our life depends on natural circumstances, we know when to hunt and when to share our food with wolves. Predators such as wolves play a big role for the ecosystem.

Our food and dwellings come from natural resources, are recyclable and environmentally friendly. In the countryside everyone is a valued member regardless of their gender.

During summertime I used to spend all day by the river near our home. I used to swim and play with stones and sand. When I got hungry, I used to fish. I always carried a knife with me. Carrying a knife and a gun is very common in the countryside. Those weapons are only used for survival. I have never heard about someone shooting someone else. I would make a fire and cook the fish. After my meal I would bring some fish to my neighbours. It is one of our traditions. Mother nature generously offered food to me. I shall share that kindness with others.

My parents valued education. My older sister and I went to a school located 30km from our home. Since there was no public transportation, we stayed in the dormitory from the start of junior infants until the end of secondary school. We came home every holiday and school break. In the Winter we used to ride horse to go back home and, in the Spring, and Summer we used to walk. Most of the time strangers who met us on the road gave us a lift home.

I have been living in Ireland since December 2016. I met my Irish boyfriend (now husband) in Mongolia. We lived together in Mongolia’s capital city Ulaanbaatar for 3 years and then moved to Ireland. I had never heard about Ireland before, and I knew nothing about Irish society. I just trusted in our love and hoped to build a life together in Ireland. Moving is part of my life. I didn’t expect anything. My parents believed in my husband. Their only worry was that if Ireland didn’t exist! My Mam asked me to google about Ireland before I made any decision. My plan was to come here, see the lifestyle and if things weren’t working well for me, I would go back to Mongolia. I was a social worker and had a well-established career in Mongolia.

We came with my 5-year-old daughter. I realised that the Irish education system is recognized worldwide, and that this society is very child friendly. We decided to stay in Ireland in order to give a better opportunity for my daughter. 

My husband’s family were incredibly supportive of me from the moment we met, and I never once felt like I didn’t belong in his family. But it probably took about 3 years for me to feel truly ‘at home’ in Ireland. The cultural and language barriers were tough to overcome. So many things are different to my country and the way I grew up. Customs, food, body language, expressions, politics, almost anything you can name is different to Mongolia!

There is also a small but tight-knit community of Mongolian people here in Ireland, some of whom have lived here for 15 years or longer. They helped me a lot to understand Irish society and the way things work here. I would have been completely lost without their support and the support of my husband’s family.

My experience of being an immigrant has been very positive overall but my life in Ireland had a rocky start. In April 2017 I suddenly lost my Mam and then my Dad. They were both gone within 6 months. I was stunned by the double loss. My people are nomadic, and, in our culture, we don't keep our loved one’s body for very long after their death. I didn't have a chance to say my final goodbye to either my Mam or my Dad. I simply didn’t have enough time to go back to the Mongolian countryside. It hit me very hard.

My parents were right to believe in my husband. He inspired me when I lost my confidence, encouraged me when I felt lost, embraced me for who I am and supported my work and nourished my dream. He healed my broken heart with his love and gave me wings to fly. My mother-in-law Deirdre was always there for me too. I couldn’t ask for a nicer person than her. Despite our cultural and language differences she became my Mam in Ireland. I realised that although I had lost my Mam, I had gained a Mam as well.

While I was grieving, I found out that my education and work experience was not recognised in Ireland. I needed to re-build my career but also mind my mental health. It wasn’t easy. There were many days I felt like the sky was too far to reach and the ground was too hard to walk on. But I made it through because of the enormous support I received from so many strangers, both Irish and Mongolian. These people became my Irish family and friends. I’m so grateful to the people of Ireland and their hospitality. Without your warm Irish culture, it would have been a very different story.

I didn’t want to stop my volunteering and community work in Ireland. So, I started a blog for Mongolians in Ireland about life in Ireland. I also decided to join a campaign for undocumented people. I encouraged Mongolians to join this campaign and other projects like it because by doing so would help us to connect more into Irish society.

During my volunteering time I emailed many NGO’s working for minorities’ rights and women’s organizations in Ireland to ask about their services and translate them into Mongolian for the community. It was a way of dealing with my grief and trying to continue my passions in Ireland. Only a few of them emailed back and just 3 wanted to meet me.

The Immigrant Council of Ireland’s Integration Manager Teresa Buczkowska met me in her office in 2017. Since our first meeting she has never forgotten me. She included me in many trainings and called me into their meetings and introduced me to other activists in Ireland. From 2020-2021 she mentored me for free and gave me references to other organisations that I applied to for a job. I relied on her knowledge and benefited hugely from her kindness and integration skills.

The warm culture of Ireland and the kindnesses of Irish people have given me strength and helped to make me a better person. I am grateful that I dealt with one of the most challenging times of my life in Ireland.

Ireland is giving me tremendous opportunities to be myself and embrace who I am and I am very grateful to be benefiting from this country’s integration and inclusive policy.

The Southside Traveller’s Action Group accepted my knowledge, valued my experience, and trusted my passion. Their Director Geraldine Dunne has given me the chance to show my appreciation to Irish society by working with them. As a nomadic person I’m delighted to work with fellow nomadic people. In spite of many barriers, Maynooth University opened a special application for me to apply and offered me a place on their Community and Youth Development master’s program. Skein press publishing house has accepted me into their new fellowship program to mentor my writing. Stinging fly magazine offered me a scholarship to enter their summer school for fiction writing. The wonderful author and activist Melatu Uche Okorie nominated me to become a peer panelist for the Arts Council of Ireland and incredibly I was deemed eligible.

While I do believe Ireland has great integration laws, I didn’t always feel that I was included. I felt welcome to the door but not to the room. If Ireland wants to build a more inclusive and diverse society, it needs to promote and give more chances to migrant people who want to enter employment. There are many barriers to migrants to enter into decision-making roles and senior job positions. Even NGOs working for migrants’ rights are all lead by Irish people who have never immigrated.

Since arriving in Ireland, I’ve been involved in a few voluntary and community initiatives:

2019 Migrant against exploitation (MAX) Project, founded by The Migrant Rights Centre in Ireland

-       Worked with the Mongolian community in Ireland.

-       Learned and disseminated information regarding human trafficking, labour exploitation and employee rights.

2017- 2020 About Ireland Blog.

-       Translated current affairs and other news relevant for the Mongolian community into Mongolian.

-       Connected people in need with the appropriate organization/authority.

-       Met Irish experts, learn about their social care and protection services.

-       Translated these services for the Mongolian community.

I am one of the founders of “We are here too” campaign and Migrant Women Na hÉireann, which seeks to raise awareness and provide support to victims of domestic and gender-based violence. I also write about Mongolian culture in an attempt to honor my parents’ legacy and illustrate the beauty and hardship that comes with a traditional nomadic lifestyle. 

My hopes for the future? I want to get involved in decision making and want to be part of an inclusive, vibrant, environmentally friendly Ireland.

---

Briege’s Story

TW; violence

Growing up in Northern Ireland (NI), I went to school in Belfast but spent all my holidays in Annaclone at my Aunt B’s house. I never really took to Belfast. Oldpark Avenue was a mixed street to begin with; we were Catholic and as I got older, I noticed that around the beginning of July the Protestant neighbours stopped speaking to us and put out their Union flags. In the summer of 1969, many Catholic houses were burned in Ardoyne and the B Specials were known to be very anti-Catholic in that area. All that summer there were riots and they were getting closer to us. A lot of Protestant families left. We heard shooting most nights and one of our neighbours told my father to get himself a gun to protect his family. Dad decided to pack us all up and take us to safety in Cabra near Hilltown where we stayed for the rest of the summer. Dad went to work and came up at weekends. From 1966 – 1971, I attended Our Lady of Mercy Secondary School off the Ballysillan Road. From about 1970 most of the Catholics in that area moved out - the school had been broken into, Holy statues broken, and paint daubed on the walls, and there were riots in the area. We were told not to leave the school grounds at lunch time, not to walk home and if we must, to remove our ties. You did feel nervous leaving school and we were always told to be careful at assembly each day.

In 1971 I started working at the Law Courts in Belfast – it was a mixed group and we all got on reasonably well, but it was my first time coming across Protestants who all seemed to have the senior jobs and the biggest say. I felt like a second-class citizen, that I was lucky to even have a job. I was shocked one day when a Protestant co-worker came in shouting that she had got her vote. She was 17. I was 18 and still waiting for mine. In 1972 - my cousin Patrick was shot and killed as he worked in his father’s bar on the Springfield Road. Two UDA men had come in and just opened fire. On the night of the funeral, we came home, and my mother had just pulled the curtains when there was a massive explosion. Every window in our house was blown in. There was a hotel called the Imperial nearby and a bomb had been planted. There was a Convent next door which had to be demolished due to bomb damage. Around this time my father, who was a self-employed builder, had all his equipment taken out of his storage yard on the Oldpark Road and used as barricades and set on fire by the local Catholics/IRA to stop the army gaining entry to the area. He lost his business practically overnight.

Before all this, in 1971 three Scottish soldiers had been drinking with a couple of girls in a bar and went back with them to their flat off the Antrim Road. All three were murdered by the IRA. The RUC at this time had a Confidential Telephone that people could call and give a name. I’m not sure when exactly but maybe a year or so later someone put my name forward because I looked like one of the women. Two policemen turned up at our house and took me down to the police station to give a statement. It wasn’t until it was signed and dated that they explained why I’d been questioned. They took me home and I never heard from them again. At that time people were being accused in the wrong and interned. It wasn’t until later that it really started to frighten me - how easily I could have ended up in prison for something I didn’t do. My parents were very upset.

My solace at this time were the monthly trips to Portaferry. My then boyfriend (and later husband) Hugh, who lived there, very rarely travelled to Belfast as his parents didn’t want him anywhere near the place, understandably. By 1974 the tension in NI was unbearable and Ian Paisley called an Ulster Workers Council Strike in May. Hugh and I had gone over to Liverpool for the weekend to get away from it all. When we arrived back, the ports were closed, and we couldn’t get a bus or taxi. Belfast was in complete lockdown. There were loyalists with their flags, balaclavas and uniforms carrying guns on the streets and I felt that this could be a massacre. Never had I felt so frightened to be Catholic in my life. This was the straw that broke the camel’s back; Hugh’s parents (who’d moved to England) wanted him out and safe with them, so he went. After a couple of months, he asked me to come over. I was 19 but I decided to go as I also had had enough of the Troubles.

As an immigrant in England, one of the first things I felt was freedom - not being body searched every time you went into a building or got on transport. Hugh by that time was working in a bank and a couple of nights a week in a pub. His parents and I would go down and have a drink and got to know the locals who were very friendly and never made any bad comments about NI. The Birmingham bombings happened at the end of 1974 though and suddenly if you had an Irish accent at all you seemed to be included in any conversation about it. Nothing was really said to me but, being Catholic, I felt I had nearly done something wrong. I felt uneasy - but was also ashamed that such a thing had happened. Overall, the English people were generally very nice, but I felt that they reserved judgement on you - coming from a war-torn country and being Catholic why would I want to come to a British country? I never really felt at home in England, I always thought that if the Troubles had died down, I would have come home to NI sooner. One of the things I think about now was how little news about the atrocities in NI was on the news, so people in England really didn’t know the half of it.

I moved to the US sometime after and straight off the bat I was introduced to several Irish people who ran the Irish pubs - they had great music and you could get a hot whiskey just like back home. My first secretarial position was at the British Consul and the NIO office one summer. It kept me up to date with what was going on at home. Unfortunately, some days there were IRA supporters outside and we’d have to go in a side door - especially if there were any Royal or Political visits planned.

I moved back to NI in 2015. One thing I now have is a vote which was not the case when I lived here in the 70’s. I use my vote every time. When thinking about how we can improve integration and inclusion for migrants … I think most good people in this word would rather be friends than enemies. If we fail to integrate, if we indicate by our behaviour that we only want to mix with certain people, then we will find racism. In NI, I would like to see less of the Catholic/Protestant parades and flag waving - it just keeps the old wounds open. I think we should change our politics from Orange and Green and work for the good of all.

DISCOVER MORE ABOUT THE MOVEMENT PROJECT

The content of this publication is the sole responsibility of Herstory and does not necessarily reflect the position of the Anna Lindh Foundation or the European Union. www.annalindhfoundation.org

#4 Unknown Woman & Fatme Chhayber

Portrait by Aya Saleh

Parallel Story #3

Unknown Woman and Fatme Chhayber

? to Palestine?

Palestine to Canada

This parallel story was put forward by the Jerusalem Center for Women for Movement

Fatme has been paired with an ‘unknown woman’ because due to the Israeli occupation, it is unsafe for women in Palestine to share their stories.

Fatme’s family were forced to emigrate from Acre to Lebanon after Al-Nakba (The 1948 Palestinian exodus). Due to the war in Lebanon, her family moved from South Lebanon to Anjar, where she was born in 1952. Her family had to leave again, and this time they moved to Burj Ash-Shamali Camp in Lebanon, as her father found a job there and rented two rooms. Again due to war, they were forced to move to Tal Al-Zaatar camp. And for the third time they were forced to move to Burj Al-Barajneh camp in Beirut as a result of the Israeli-Lebanese war. This way Fatme spent her childhood in three different camps.

Later, when Fatme got married, her husband moved to Qatar, while she stayed in Labanon with her family and children. In 1982 Israel invaded Lebanon and began a slaughter that resulted in the Sabra and Shatila massacre, in which 17 members of Fatme’s family were killed.

In 1990, Fatme moved to Qatar and reunited with her husband. In that exact year Iraq invaded Kuwait, and all the Palestinians in Qatar were expelled to Canada. Nowadays Fatme lives in Canada, she has a Canadian passport. She visits Palestine from time to time, but can’t stay in Palestine for more than three months.

Why can’t Fatme return to Palestine for more than 3 months?

‘Israel prevents Palestinian refugees from returning because it claims they are a security threat. However, seeing as Israel is a settler colony built on stolen land, it did not have the population numbers to sustain itself. It could only be established by creating new demographic realities on the ground, these new realities necessitated that approximately 80% of the Palestinians in what is today considered Israel be ethnically cleansed to maintain a demographically stable Zionist ethnocracy.’

- Decolonize Palestine

Fatme, a mother of four, was deprived of her homeland.

DISCOVER MORE ABOUT THE MOVEMENT PROJECT

The content of this publication is the sole responsibility of Herstory and the Jerusalem Center for Women and does not necessarily reflect the position of the Anna Lindh Foundation or the European Union. www.annalindhfoundation.org

#5 Milena & Jelena

Jelena and Milena by Jelena Radusinovic

Parallel Story #4

Milena & Jelena

Slovenia & Montenegro

This parallel story was put forward by APIS Institute (Slovenia) for Movement

The story about Milena and Jelena is a story about two women from different generations, and different backgrounds but united in one family, and connected through their unique experience of migration. Milena started her migration in Belgrade, continued in Slovenia (her home country) and in the name of love and a united family concluded in Montenegro. Jelena's starting point 30 years later was Montenegro. Belgrade was just a temporary stop, but to Ljubljana in Slovenia (her mother-in-law Milena's home) she went for the very same reason as Milena went to Montenegro: she followed her life companion to preserve the family. This is the shared value of both women, wrapped in love, together and connected.

Milena’s Story

Milena was born in Belgrade, Serbia, in 1948. Both of her parents are Slovenians who lived in Belgrade, where they met. Milena's father was stationed in Belgrade as a Yugoslav army officer and her mother was a nurse. They lived in Belgrade until Milena was six years old, then they moved to Ljubljana in Slovenia, where she started to go to school.

As a young woman, she met Baco, a Montenegrin man who came to Ljubljana to study architecture. They married when she was 21 years old. Milena gave birth to three sons, but unfortunately, her first child died. In 1979 there was a severe earthquake in Montenegro and her husband wanted to return to his homeland to help with rebuilding it. Milena was 30 at that time.

At first they lived with her husband's family in a smaller town close to the capital. Life there was simple and much less comfortable than in Ljubljana. They both had replaced good and reliable jobs, and a comfortable, well-off life in the capital of Slovenia, for a new beginning in a more conservative and closed society. For some reason, probably due to Milena's open, sincere, and talkative character, her integration was smooth. She didn't complain, despite the fact that she went from a centrally heated apartment to one warm room in the house, from running tap water in the house to the only water supply being in the yard. She admits that she herself did not yet know how very flexible she was.

It is true that the language, a frequent barrier to migration abroad, was not a problem for her. She was fluent in the Serbian language (spoken in Montenegro and also an official language in former Yugoslavia) and Montenegro, just like Slovenia, was part of Yugoslavia. So she actually migrated within the same country into a different nation. Nevertheless, the mentality of the people, as well as the standard, was quite different. Milena, with her openness, spontaneity, and eloquence, brought free-thinking ideas and progress. She taught young mothers more advanced handling of babies, for example. She was the only woman who went to the only hotel in town for coffee, and the only one who went to the cinema with her husband to watch a movie with erotic content.

After a year in Montenegro's countryside they moved to Podgorica, the capital. Life there was more open and Milena met some of her best friends there. She also started her own business. She had a kiosk with wood and glass products from Slovenia and Serbia, as well as jewelry and other products that she made herself. 

When the war broke out in Yugoslavia, the kiosk had to close. She took a pedicure course and a state exam in Belgrade and then opened her small lounge in a former children's room. The business went well for her and many famous people were regular customers. Unfortunately, she had to stop the business again, because her husband got cancer and they went to Slovenia for medical treatment. 

For Milena, her family is everything. She never regretted her move to Montenegro - they were constantly in contact with her family in Slovenia, they used to spend holidays in Croatia, she kept in touch with her friends in Slovenia and gained new best friends in Montenegro as well. She can say she lives her life fully and she learned many things. She loves life and she still enjoys it fully. 

---

Jelena’s Story

Jelena is a Montenegrin who grew up in a pleasant and safe environment. She entered Milena's family through Milena’s younger son Nikola. Jelena and Nikola met in Podgorica when he was working in his father's architectural office and she worked in a bar in the same building. It was at the beginning of this millennium.  They married soon after and like Milena, Jelena was very young at the time, in her early twenties. Later they lived in Belgrade for a while, where Nikola had to finish his studies in architecture. Interestingly enough, he could have gone to study architecture in Ljubljana, just like his father, as he had been accepted at the faculty, but he decided on Belgrade because it was closer to home. Later he searched for a job and one of the offers came from Germany, with first arrangement meetings in Ljubljana. 

That's how they decided, almost overnight, to move to Ljubljana. Their son was about three years old, almost the same age as Nikola had been when his family moved from Slovenia to Montenegro.

For Jelena, Slovenia was another country. Yugoslavia no longer existed and although the two countries do not seem far apart, the differences in mentality and study opportunities were still quite large.  As a sensitive soul, it was not easy for her to replace her familiar environment with an unknown one. She felt like a plant, uprooted from the home soil. At the same time, she knew she was capable of standing her ground and sticking up for herself. 

Adapting to the Slovenian language was slow. In the beginning, she refused to speak Slovene and in a new environment she was reserved, she didn't dare to speak aloud. She needed time to adjust and relax. After a while, she became more open. She realized most of the people like to speak Serbian with her, but it can also be fun when she is trying to express herself in Slovene. Jelena knows her mother-in-law – Milena - experienced similar situations in Montenegro, though in general Milena's adjustment was easier and she was much more familiar with the language of her new environment. 

After three years Jelena started to enjoy the benefits of her new country. She discovered a new type of freedom that in Montenegro she wouldn't have been able to afford. At the same time, she is aware that the experience of migration enriched her. In Montenegro, she would be one among many similar plants, the same as everybody else. Here she is special and unique, recognized as a foreigner from afar. This gives her added value which she is especially grateful for. Just like Milena brought her open and free mentality to Montenegro society, Jelena found her freedom in Slovenia, the country Milena came from. 

For these two women, the cycle of migration connects in two generations. Milena started her life journey as a baby in Belgrade, she was born in another culture than her parents were coming from, which, in a way, prepared her for her future life adventures. Growing up in the center of Ljubljana, in an open-minded bourgeois environment at the time of former Yugoslavia, has shaped her into a free and confident person who can adapt to any situation. Her love and devotion to her husband and family brought her to Montenegro, where she enriched her life probably more than she would have in Slovenia. Jelena, born and raised in Montenegro in the eighties, along with Milena's son, slightly reversed the path. From Podgorica, capital of Montenegro, they went to Belgrade, Serbia, and only then back to the source, into a magnificent town apartment in the very center of Ljubljana, near which Jelena also found her artistic space and freedom.

DISCOVER MORE ABOUT THE MOVEMENT PROJECT

The content of this publication is the sole responsibility of Herstory and the APIS Institute and does not necessarily reflect the position of the Anna Lindh Foundation or the European Union. www.annalindhfoundation.org

#6 Josephine & Nermeen

Josephine and Nermeen by Adel Maguidy

Parallel Story #5

Josephine & Nermeen Maher

South Sudan & Egypt

This parallel story was put forward by Charisma arts foundation for development (Egypt) for Movement

---

Raised in Sudan, Josephine has faced constant turmoil in her life, from her mother’s abduction to being forced into marriage by her brother. While her escape to Egypt has given her some solace, she still faces harassment, loneliness and isolation in her new home. Nermeen, born and raised in Egypt was forced to emigrate to Emirates to find work with her family in the early 2000s. Despite never feeling fully at home there, Nermeen has stayed to give her children a better life, even if that means her own loneliness at times.

Josephine’s story is first. To skip to Nermeen’s story click here.

---

Josephine’s Story

TW; violence, abduction.

Originally from south Sudan and raised in a good family, Josephine lost her father when she was young and so in the eyes of her community she was considered an orphan. Her elder brother was then considered the male in charge. She went to college in south Sudan and studied engineering and graduated with lots of hope for a bright future as an engineer, but these dreams collapsed as the conflict in the country escalated; troops were fighting each other and killing with no mercy anyone who didn’t belong to their side, women and children included.

At one point, her mother was captured and for days Josephine fasted and kept praying day and night until a miracle happened and the lord saved her mother. ‘They killed the other women who were with my mother without saying a word, and when it was my mother's turn, they said something and she answered in their language, so she was spared.’ The nightmare for Josephine didn’t end there. One day, a suitor came to Josephine who wanted to marry her, but she refused. However, being an orphan, her elder brother had a lot of control over her and gave this man his word and was going to force her too marry him. Her brother took from this man 50 cows, but then, due to the war, her brother went missing, along with his wife, and the cows were stolen.

The situation was extremely bad in Sudan, people were killed in the streets and Josephine lost many loved ones, so her family decided to flee to Cairo, Egypt. Her sister went first and then Josephine and her mum followed. As soon as she arrived she went to the UN to register herself. To support her family financially and to be able to provide rental and food, she agreed to work as a servant to clean houses.

Integration wasn’t always easy; Josephine experienced things like kids throwing stones at her saying she was black, harassment and bulling in the streets of the poor area where she and some of the Sudanese community went to live in Cairo, but of her experience she said, ‘it’s ok, they didn’t learn how to accept the different ones, I forgave them as Jesus forgave me, and people are not always the same, some were very nice and respectful.’ What helped her was joining the Sudanese community in church where they would have Sunday together, eating, praying, and helping each other to get jobs and so on.

Josephine’s nightmare continued as the man who had wanted to marry her in Sudan followed her to Egypt, demanding the price of his cows, or her hand in marriage. He threatened to kill her should she refuse, and to prove he was serious in hurting her, he beat her up and broke her knee so badly that she was unable to continue her employment as a cleaner.

The arrival of Covid-19 made everything more difficult, particularly when Josephine contracted the virus herself and had to recover alone, whilst hiding from this man in a new flat where she is living with some other people. It was about this time too that she found a throat tumor that has to be operated on to see how serious it is. When asked if she is afraid of the health condition, she replied, ‘I am sure God is taking care of me, why should I be afraid?’ Her main concern is the man attacking her again… and figuring out from where can she get him this fortune of money. She can hardly find food to feed herself now that she can’t work.

Talking about her family, Josephine mentioned her married sister who has kids, but she didn’t go into much detail because she is afraid of exposing her sister and nieces/nephews to violence from this man. Her mother had to return to Sudan to look for her missing brother’s kids. She is hopeful that one day they will return to Cairo.

---

Portrait by Hala Awad

Nermeen’s Story

Nermeen Maher was one of two children born into her family. Her family was from an educated background so they were keen to send her to good education, English schools in the prestigious area where she was living in Maadi. Following this she went to a Fine Arts College and graduated as an Interior engineer. It was while she was at college that her mother got very sick, and after being hospitalized for months she died. Nermeen was devastated by this loss.

A year later, Nermeen met her husband and she was married when she was 26. They were both engineers who had stable jobs at the time. Some years later however, her husband lost his job. They kept looking for jobs, but while all doors were closed in Egypt, they received three offers from Emirates. Nermeen was very attached to her area, community and church in Maadi. To leave her only brother and elderly father, her stable job, her friends and her community to travel to a strange country was a difficult decision but with a three-year old daughter, they made the decision to go looking for a better living in about 2003.

Their original plan was to stay in Emirates for a year or two, until they improved their financial status, however after the birth of her second daughter, Nermeen had to start looking for a job there herself. The demands of having a household and running a family was expensive, and the only way to go was to have both parents working.

Nermeen found a very good job as an interior designer, and despite the fact she had to take care of the house work, her husband and daughters, and the projects at work that she was assigned to, she continued to be promoted as the years went by. Then to their astonishment one day, the company her husband worked with closed and he lost his job. The rules of the gulf countries include that you have to have a work permit to stay in the country, and either Nermeen or her husband should have a permanent job visa permit to add the other party and the children to it, or the whole family will be separated. According to Nermeen, very few jobs in Emirates allow for a women to add her husband and children to her visa and health care. Luckily for her, one of these jobs was engineering, so after lot of paper work, she managed to add her family to her visa while her husband kept looking for a job. Eventually he decided to open his own small business in Emirates. They studied their options, started lots of paperwork, and things were starting to improve however lots of taxes and country regulations led to him closing this small business shortly after it had begun. He decided to return to Egypt to open his project in his own country.

It wasn’t easy for Nermeen to stay in Emirates without him, and through this period of instability and isolation, her father passed away which broke her heart again. She travelled to Egypt for a few days and continued mourning while working and taking care of her daughters, all the while supporting her husband and wondering what their next step would be.

Nermeen and her husband

In 2015 while he was in Egypt for a visit to try to establish his own business, Nermeen’s husband’s heart stopped beating, and he passed away quietly. This was the biggest shock and heartbreak of her life, as well as the biggest obstacle. How could she continue in a foreign country completely alone? On the other hand, if she went back to Egypt she would lose her stable job. As well as that, Egypt had a very different education system for the girls. After a lot of reflection, Nermeen decided to continue sacrificing for her daughters by remaining in Emirates.

Nermeen faced lots of obstacles when she first emigrated and it took her years to integrate and even with that, she never felt 100% at home in Emirates. In the beginning, every year she travelled home to Egypt to spend 2/3 months taking a breath with her old friends and her family. She wanted her girls to always be well connected with her family, so she used to take her annual leave in Egypt. Although Emirates is an Arabic speaking country, the language was extremely different, even for her as a well-educated bilingual person. Arabic and English slang was very different in both countries so it took her a long time to even understand what people were speaking about. When they first emigrated they lived in Dubai, which was populated with many different nationalities, each with a different tongue and way of speaking. When they moved to Abu Dhabi, however, they found it more family-oriented, there were less nationalities and after a while she started to engage in activities with the Egyptian church in Abu Dhabi which helped her find fellow Egyptians. This helped her and her family feel like a part of a bigger entity in the beginning, and again after her husband passed away when they came to her side so that she wouldn’t feel so alone there.

Nowadays Nermeen is still living in Emirates for her two daughters who are being well educated there. She is dedicated to raising them, and has become project manager in her work in the interior engineering field. She is also serving in the church and volunteering in youth groups, trying to kill the deadly loneliness feeling by also joining support groups in the church for widowed women. Her favourite time of the year is the month she takes as a holiday to bring her daughters to Egypt to be well connected with the family. She hopes to move ‘home’ eventually.

DISCOVER MORE ABOUT THE MOVEMENT PROJECT

The content of this publication is the sole responsibility of Herstory and Charisma Arts for Development and does not necessarily reflect the position of the Anna Lindh Foundation or the European Union. www.annalindhfoundation.org

#7 Ashimedua Okonkwo & Jess

Ashimedua & Jess by Philip Doyle

Parallel Story #6

Ashimedua Okonkwo & Jess

Nigeria & Ireland

This parallel story was put forward by Herstory and AkiDwA for Movement

Born and raised in Nigeria, Ashimedua Okonkwo followed love to Ireland in 2000 and with minimal resources, set up her own law firm. She also threw herself into community involvement and is a board member on both the National Women’s Council of Ireland and the Louth-Meath Enterprise Training Board where she is proud to be a representative voice for migrants. Jess grew up in Ireland and first moved abroad to find work after graduating at the beginning of the recession. She lived and worked in Australia, the Netherlands, the UK and Denmark before returning to Ireland to train as a solicitor. After years of travelling back and forth to Amsterdam, she rejoined her partner in the Netherlands and started a new chapter in her legal career.

Ashimedua’s story is first. To skip to Jess’s story click here.

---

Ashimedua’s Story

I grew up in Lagos State, Nigeria. In my family was my father, mother and two brothers and a sister. Some of my defining childhood memories would be attending court with my father and wondering why everyone had to stand when my father walked in and only sat when he sat down. Why did my father always have police around him?  My father was a Judge in Nigeria, but as a child I did not understand that.  He was just dad to me.

I moved to Ireland in 2000. I moved to Ireland because I followed love. He had a job in Ireland, and I moved over with him. As simple as that.  I was immediately in love with Ireland because it was very peaceful, and everything seemed very fresh. We didn’t have the M1 motorway and the only big store near us was in Navan. We had to travel to Navan from Drogheda for a day out in order to go shopping.

My experience of being an immigrant has been very powerful because I am often underestimated, and it has produced great gains because they never see me coming. I started my law firm, Cyril & Co. Solicitors, because I was unable to secure employment when I got here. I sought employment for 5 years and was unable to obtain anything, this was because I was told that I was too qualified etc. (the usual stories they tell us migrants). Because I did not wish to remain unemployed, I set up my own law firm from very minimal resources.  I used my son’s computer and a printer that I purchased for €50. I got on the road seeking clients and giving speeches everywhere. It took time to build my clientele, but it came together eventually. I am blessed because my business has grown to the extent that I now provide employment to four other staff and this means that I am helping four other families. I have been a board member at the National Women’s Council of Ireland for two years and found that time amazing.  I have also been a board member on the Louth Meath Enterprise Training Board. This is the education board for the schools in Louth and Meath and this was a very humbling experience because I was the only migrant on this board. I joined it to be a representative of the fact that we as migrants have a voice and our voices could not be heard if we were not at the table.

I have experienced obnoxious people and ignorant people here, but I am quickly able to tell them where to get off. This often shocks them because they believe that older Africans are very timid. In general, though, Irish people are friendly and supportive. We are more similar than we think. The older generation of Irish women grew up like we Nigerian women. They had nothing while growing up and they are humbler. Plus, the majority of the missionaries who visited Nigeria were from Ireland and they taught us their culture, so we are similar in many ways. Currently in Ireland there is a lot of integration going on with the children and younger generation. The society is mixed. The Irish love our cultures and want to be more with us especially their girls and our sons.  People should get to know each other.  There is great craic in just being people instead of defining people by colour. In order to improve integration – people need to meet more people. Speak to more people and make friends. A lot of migrants are afraid to make friends with the locals or sometimes it’s the other way round.  Be fearless and challenge things. As they say in social media companies, move fast and break things. Then they will know that we have arrived, and we are here to stay.

In saying that, I long to be home, especially now that I am an older woman. In the past while, I’ve become more African and I am not embarrassed by that. I now dress in a way that you would definitely know that I am African. This is partly because I have American qualifications and people always tend to think that I am an American. My most treasured memories from home are speaking in pidgin English. Everyone understands and there is a certain type of melody attached to speaking it. It sounds like you are singing it and the gestures that go with it are also phenomenal.

What inspires me is powerful women, women who made things happen irrespective of the odds against them. My role models would include Oprah Winfrey, Maya Angelou, Hilary Clinton, Michelle Obama, and many other powerful women of colour.  I think I may be adding Kamala Harris soon – I’m just waiting to get to know more of her. My personal superpower is my ability to not accept no for an answer. We just have to keep going. No matter what, the show must go on.

You do not have to be a migrant to understand humanity.  The majority of my clients are indigenous Irish people, and they have their own issues as well.  Everyone has issues, everyone has the same pain and wants the same solutions. We are all people. Period.

---

Jess’ Story

I grew up in Dublin, in the same area that my parents and most of my grandparents grew up in. We travelled abroad a few times when I was a child, but I never really thought about leaving Dublin when I was growing up or even in university. My parents had lived abroad when they were younger, in Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands and the UK, but had decided to return to Ireland when they were having children. They always instilled a strong sense of Ireland as home in me and my brother.

I first moved abroad in 2009 to Australia. It wasn’t something I’d ever really thought about doing before 2008, but it seemed like my best option when the financial crisis started. I had finished my legal studies in mid-2008 and then started sitting the first exams to become a solicitor. As the financial crisis grew, finding any kind of legal work was challenging and many law firms had hiring freezes, so I thought that the best thing to do was move abroad and try to get some experience until the financial crisis passed. I spent a few months in Melbourne working in different jobs, including at a law firm, and then found out I had been accepted to a public international law master’s programme in the Netherlands, so I returned to Europe.

After my master’s, I spent time working in London and Denmark, waiting for the situation in Ireland to improve, before eventually returning to Ireland when I got a contract with an Irish firm to train to become a solicitor. But I had met my partner during my time in the Netherlands and for most of the first seven years of our relationship, we lived in different countries. After I qualified as a solicitor, we realised we needed to find a place to call home. Ireland did not have the opportunities he needed for his career, and his home country of Denmark had the same problems for me, so the Netherlands was a compromise for us both.

I moved to Australia completely alone. When I think back on it now, it seems bizarre and I’m sure my family and friends thought the same, though everyone was supportive. I had made friends with some Canadians who’d been living in Ireland on an exchange programme the year before and they had moved to Australia a few months earlier, but besides that I knew no-one. I stayed on one of my new friend’s sofas for a week or two until I could find my own place and then launched myself into work.

All of my moves since then were easier, you get the hang of these things over time and by the time I came back to the Netherlands, I understood the system quite well, had a place to live and a job lined up before I even got on the plane.

The Netherlands offered me opportunities that I wouldn’t have had had I not gone there, both personally and professionally. Before the pandemic, living in a place like the Netherlands offered a huge variety of experiences. I live in the Randstad area, so cities like Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague and Utrecht are all in easy reach. There was always something new to try out, whether it was a museum, a restaurant or even going to a ballet or opera. There’s also a rich history and many beautiful places to see, so I have often spent weekends cycling to historic cities or towns. Paris, Brussels and London were also just a few hours away by train, so travelling on weekends was a lot easier. I was also able to buy a house here, which I don’t think would have been possible with the current housing situation in Dublin.

On a professional level, I always wanted to use my background in public international law and there’s no better place to do it. It was the natural next step in my career. The Hague is home to many international organisations, international courts and NGOs and I’ve been fortunate enough to find work in one of these.

Overall, my experience of being a migrant has been positive. I know I’m incredibly privileged to travel as an EU citizen. Fewer doors are closed. I’ve been able to live and visit more or less anywhere I want without worrying too much about whether my visa application would be rejected. I’m conscious that friends and family who have partners from some countries outside the EU need to have an immigration lawyer’s number to hand any time they want them to visit.

Obviously, since the pandemic has begun, living abroad has been a lot more challenging. I’m glad that Ireland has been so cautious in its approach to travel because I know it has kept my family safer than they would be in other places but it is hard not knowing when I will be able to visit my home again. One thing I’ve noticed is that whenever international travel has been mentioned, the discussion has been all about holidays abroad. It feels like this discourse about international travel as some kind of luxury or treat ignores the experience of Irish emigrants and immigrants to Ireland throughout this pandemic. I think every person who leaves their home lives in fear of that phone call to say that a loved one is injured, ill or dying and not being able to make it back in time to say goodbye. That has weighed heavily throughout these travel restrictions.

What has your experience of integration been like?

To be honest, I’m not sure that I really am integrated, although I have tried. I am learning Dutch and I’ve read up about Dutch history and culture but I do still live in a bubble of international friends and colleagues. You can really get by here if you only speak English. Even with our neighbours, we started off trying to speak Dutch to them but soon English became the default because their English is so much better and that creates a certain barrier. You can go to the doctor or hospital and speak only English, buy a house through English, get married through English and study through English. Again, this is my experience because I am from the EU. I know that there is quite a strict integration process for non-EU people here with mandatory language exams and cultural tests, so this is a privileged position.

Working in a Dutch company for several years also helped and certainly exposed me more to Dutch culture but there is still a bit of a feeling of being an outsider. More generally, there is sometimes a sense here that if you and your parents and preferably grandparents weren’t born here, you can’t ever be Dutch. This is reflected in the citizenship laws. Like Ireland, children born in the Netherlands are not entitled to Dutch citizenship automatically if their parents are not Dutch citizens. When my first child is born here later this year, they will be Irish and Danish but not Dutch.

How can we improve the process of inclusion and integration?

I think that balancing both inclusion and integration is really important. Sometimes they can be seen as competing with each other. One of the things that the Netherlands was historically known for was its openness and tolerance of people fleeing persecution from other countries and it has a rich cultural heritage because of that. I think it’s important that individuals and communities can carry on their own traditions and bring new ideas to their new home but instead many countries focus purely on making sure new arrivals ‘fit in’. I think helping people continue to enjoy their community and traditions is especially important for refugees and the many people who immigrate out of necessity rather than choice. Having programmes to help people learn about their new home and adjust are also important and can go hand-in-hand with this. But I think the focus should be on making sure that people feel safe and supported in their new country so they can find a balance between their old life and their new life.

What are your hopes for the future?

On a personal level, I hope to see my family soon when it is safe to travel again. On a broader societal level, I hope that in hindsight this pandemic will show that we are more interlinked than we think and when global crises like this happen, we need to work together. I’m conscious that while much of the world has weathered the same storm in the last year, our resources and abilities to cope with this have been wildly different. This pandemic has shown more than ever that we need to think globally rather than locally and I hope that maybe some good can come from that realisation after so much loss.

DISCOVER MORE ABOUT THE MOVEMENT PROJECT

Artist Info

Philip Doyle:

Insta: @artbyphilipdoyle

The content of this publication is the sole responsibility of Herstory and does not necessarily reflect the position of the Anna Lindh Foundation or the European Union. www.annalindhfoundation.org

#8 Laura Mentz Strakova & Martina Ulvrová

Laura and Martina by Ekaterina Zhelyukova

Parallel Story #7

Laura Mentz Strakova & Martina Ulvrová

US & Czech Republic

This parallel story was put forward by AMIGA (Czech Republic) for Movement

---

Having left their home countries seeking work and study opportunities, Laura and Martina decided to harness their creativity to empower those with weaker voices in their communities. Laura Mentz Strakova found out about an interesting opportunity in academia in Prague by chance, and came from the United States without knowing much about the country she was entering. As she made a new life in the Czech Republic, she got to know stories of people of different backgrounds that have trouble making their voices heard in this relatively homogenous country. She learned the Theater of the Oppressed approach and founded her own social justice advocacy organisation called Rehearsal for Reality, that empowers communities such as LGBTQ, migrants, or others and helps them tell their stories in order to bring about change through on-stage performances. Martina Ulvrová decided to come to France on a prestigious scholarship after finishing her Master’s degree in Prague. As she advanced further in her chosen field of geophysics, she realized the discrimination and deep disadvantages that women in natural sciences face. She became involved in a number of projects that promoted gender equality in academia, including Did this really happen?, that turned sexist and discriminatory experiences in the academic setting into comic strips. She is currently working on a new project, enlisting various artists to create posters showing achievements of female scientists, meant for primary and secondary schools.     

Laura’s story is first. To skip to Martina’s story click here.

---

Laura’s Story

“I’ve reinvented myself plenty of times.  I’ve been in academia, I’ve done theatre, and many other things. I’m in a constant state of growth, stretching myself in new directions and taking risks – but calculated risks, not impulsive risks – to achieve some pretty lofty goals, but also to make sure I’m having fun doing all of that.”

No particular reason to choose Prague

I grew up in the United States, and from the time I was a child I knew I wanted to live in Europe. I remember writing a letter to my parents, on a typewriter when I was eight years old, telling them that I would be living in Europe by the time I was 35. But it wasn’t really planned. The opportunity to live in Europe actually sort of crashed into my life when I was in my 30’s.  I was in academia, teaching as an adjunct professor at various colleges and universities in the Washington DC area. It was precarious work, and I was looking for something new. And I met this Czech man and ended up applying for a teaching position at Charles University and the Czech Academy of Sciences, at their center for academic writing in English. Within a year I moved to Prague. Originally, I didn’t expect to live specifically in the Czech Republic - I just knew I was heading to Europe. I simply happened to meet a Czech man, but if he happened to be French, I’d be in France now. 

First impressions

I came here in July 2001, so just before 9/11. When I first got here, it was like the tingling of the skin. It was novel and exciting. And at first, I had a really high tolerance for frustration, though I normally have a low tolerance for it, because I had to suspend my expectations of how things work, since I didn’t know how they worked here. 

People often believe that new beginnings are difficult, and things get easier the longer you adjust, but I did not have this experience. The longer I live here, the more I understand how things work here, the more annoyed I get when things don’t go as they should! But in the beginning, I didn’t know, so I accepted them more easily, realizing that it was out of my control.

I think one thing that made me feel at home here was my first true Czech friend. She heard me bellyache a lot. There were a lot of things that worked very differently here than in the US, but by acknowledging my feelings of helplessness and being present in my lowest moments, she did a lot. She also broke all the stereotypes I’d heard about Czech people. And that helped me break out of reducing the entire country to a stereotype.

It’s important to note that I came from privilege. I grew up in white upper middle class America. And I slid into a pretty privileged role here too, so my transition was probably much smoother than for many others. But the challenges haven’t stopped. I think the biggest challenge to feeling at home is the language. I am fairly conversant in Czech, but I do still sometimes shy away from situations where I would need to say something complicated. Language still creates a lot of anxiety for me. 

Where is home?

In a funny way I feel more American here than I do in America, because I stick out. For most people here that is my defining feature. Sometimes I still have imposter syndrome, that I don’t feel I fully belong here. And when I go back to the US it is comfortably familiar, but also oddly unknown. I do feel much more at home as a European.

About ten years after I moved here someone asked me when I was going back home to the US, and I answered “I AM home”. I also think it was then that I went from being an ‘expat’ to being a ‘migrant’.

Change is a lot about changing habits. Physical habits, but also habits of mind – ways of looking at political reality, at the welfare state, educational systems, ways of looking at rigid structures of systemic oppression, and how they’re built in the US and how they’re built here. It took me twenty years to get a sense of those differences and have the confidence to open an organization that would tackle these issues and open conversations about them, and do it as a migrant. For a long time, I felt that I don’t have the right to talk about these things, because everyone tells me I’m American, I don’t know what’s what. But I have come to realize that I have the right to be engaged with this society, because this is my adopted home, that I have made a concerted effort to become part of this country and to understand what’s going on here.

Working toward change on stage and off

I stumbled upon Theatre of the Oppressed by accident.  I was looking for ways to use applied theatre in educational and social contexts, and this popped up one day on Google.  I’ve always been active in social issues, and this was a kind of theatre I’d never heard of. I took all sorts of training in it and have never looked back.  

After a few years I decided to found my own organization, called Rehearsal for Reality. The goal is to open a conversation on social issues, and spark social change at the personal, social, or legislative level. The projects, workshops, and forum theatre performances we support strive to promote the inclusion of the socially excluded—the underprivileged, the LGBTQ community, migrants, survivors of violence, any community really. 

We only work with non-actors. The idea is for people who have lived an oppression to be the ones who act it out on stage. This way we can support communities in imagining how things might be different, and help them to be agents of change.  We basically ask “What would happen if?“ and then explore this in the theatre space and see what happens. We draw on Theatre of the Oppressed and other techniques to create an imaginative space where individuals can tell their stories, develop the agency and confidence to look at them from a different perspective, and create new narratives that allow for constructive choices.  The ultimate goal is that participants – and audiences – would apply these constructive choices in a real context.  

This year, I hope to work more with the migrant community and on creative community organizing. Last year, we had our first major forum theatre event at Prague Pride 2020. There was a palpable energy between actors and audience, and we were immensely proud to stand shoulder to shoulder with the LGBTQ community. When I heard people discussing the issues of the play even after they left the event, I knew what we did mattered. We got the conversation started.

Role of migrant women

Migrants – not just women – know about change better than anyone.  Our lives are defined by change, adjustment, and reinvention. We may have migrated by choice – as it was for me – or forced by circumstances of war, natural disaster or something else. But we all have one thing in common:  perseverance.  Change is hard. It is so much easier to keep the status quo. And to create change, perseverance is crucial. 

Where do migrant women fit in?  They should share their stories. But the stories need listeners!  It’s not enough to just invite women to have a seat at the table.  It’s what happens after they sit down that matters. Migrant women can engage civically, and politically, working on two fronts – a quiet approach to dialogue, and a noisier civic engagement that fights for broader change on issues that affect them.     

What inspires Laura

“Any experience that makes me feel small, that humbles me, is inspiring to me, because these experiences provide me with perspective and remind me to have a servant’s heart. In the work that I do in the theatre it could not work otherwise, because it would only be done for ego. Acts of grace, random acts of kindness inspire me on a daily basis, because they restore my faith in humanity.“

---

Martina’s Story

When I was in high school I was really good at physics, and was lucky to have had a great teacher, who opened the door to the secrets of physics for me. He told us about Feynman and his research on the atomic bomb, he lined all students in class to explain transverse and longitudinal waves using our bodies, or he climbed the table to explain oscillations. He allowed us to discover the laws of physics in a way that was engaging, fun and interactive. I grew up in a small village in the north of the Czech Republic. There were few kids my age, and no clubs or after-school activities, so I was quite bored at times. I remember having so much fun doing the experiments  he assigned as homework – like measuring how much pressure we exert on the floor, or how quickly ice melts in different conditions. He got me completely hooked on physics, and it’s why I chose to pursue this subject at Charles University. I then focused on geophysics during my Master’s, partly because I really liked hiking in the mountains, and I wanted to understand how mountains are formed. 

During that time, I got to go to France for a year to study, and then I went back to Prague to finish my studies. From the first moment I came to France I really liked the culture. I didn’t even feel like I had to get used to it much, it just immediately felt right. For the most part, it was thanks to the people I met, who made me feel welcomed. I entered an academic environment where everyone was open and helpful. When I came, I didn’t know the language. Which is a bit of a problem there, because even if they speak English, the French prefer to speak their mother tongue with everyone. But I never had the feeling that someone was judging me for my poor French, or making me feel inferior. I felt, though, that by speaking to me in French, they actually helped me learn faster. It helped me become comfortably bilingual, although I still have a strong Czech accent.

Moving away

At the end of my Master’s I was offered a doctoral scholarship in Lyon in France, which is usually difficult to get. I felt very lucky to get the chance through a unique scholarship. So I moved back to France.

The French culture really appealed to me – love of food, for example. I discovered that desserts and appetizers can be delicious, even at the university canteen. All the French people would say that the food at the canteen was not great, but for me it was like a five-star restaurant, and I was just thinking “if you could only try the ubiquitous ‘brown sauce’ at Prague’s Mathematics-Physics faculty canteen...”

Doing a PhD in France, specifically in exact sciences, it is quite demanding. I did my PhD in geophysics in computational modeling. In my lab, it was no exception that people were working all the time, even on weekends. It was not particularly easy to keep a healthy work-life balance. It was especially tricky for women. We were, for example, discouraged from starting a family during doctorate studies or at all, if we wanted to continue with in an academic career. This view is fortunately slowly changing nowadays in France and there is more and more support for female researchers who decide to have a family. But work-life balance remains a challenge in academia. Top researchers usually work non-stop.  But I always tried to find time to do things that I wanted beside my academic career, like sports and traveling, but it was not always easy. 

I’ve also come to realize that real friendships are difficult to build in the academic environment, because people are moving from place to place all the time, and when they move that relationship eventually dissipates. These relationships are important, but they will never be as deep as with my childhood friends, with whom I keep in touch to this day.

Even though I had an easy transition in France, I definitely still miss my family, every day. I’ve been living abroad for almost 15 years, and I am paying a high price for my decision to move. There is definitely some amount of estrangement that I feel from my family and friends back in Czechia. We really love each other, but I’m not there on a daily basis, I am not living with them through the different situations they face every day. But I made this decision, and I accepted it with all of the consequences. And that includes the fact that I now feel uprooted.

I moved to Zurich, Switzerland a few years ago to work on my own grant. It is another new country and I had to get used to a new culture and find out how the local system works (for example insurance or housing) yet again. But even if I stayed in France, I would still feel rootless. Even though I like the culture there, and even have French citizenship, I will never be completely at home. I don’t feel like I have strong ties there. I just didn’t have certain experiences, like going to school there. And at this point, I can’t say that I feel at home in the Czech Republic. A lot of things have changed there in these 15 years, but I also have a different perspective now than people there do. So I don’t have one country that I can call home, I usually say that I am a European. 

Gender equality in academia

I decided to try to improve gender equality in academia, because I’m an idealist, and I think that things can change for the better. I also needed to find an outlet for the frustration I felt with the fact that our society is not so inclusive and does not offer equal opportunities to everyone. The higher I got in my academic career, the more I noticed the deeply rooted gender stereotypes, social inequalities, unconscious biases and micro aggressions faced by women and minorities.. And once I became conscious of this, I began noticing it everywhere. Before, I  would actively ignore it, actually. I kind of went against the grain in many ways – I studied physics, I was friends with mostly male colleagues, I did male-dominated sports. When I’d go on expeditions to the mountains with my male colleagues,  I would ignore the constant sexist jokes. I honestly did not believe that men think less of women. But I started noticing more and more how much these ideas seeped through a lot of the communication around me. Becoming aware of this fact was a really important step towards starting to do something about it. Seeing the problem and naming it. Loads of people don’t see it – a man who makes a sexist joke doesn’t necessarily see that it’s sexist, that it hurts people around him. It’s very deceptive, because sexism is often hard to pinpoint, but you hear it constantly, every day.

So I decided to do something about it and joined a few projects on this issue. Since I am a scientist, these were projects that focused on women in sciences. 

I also joined the Swiss branch of the American organization “500 Women Scientists”. Through them I organized events for young female scientists, to encourage them to pursue careers in academia. We would invite five inspirational women, to give short lectures and then hold discussions. We also held a Wikipedia editaton. We invited around 70 people and during two hours, we edited Wikipedia pages and wrote new ones about women who have achieved something, which I also think has an important impact on the community. If you look at Wikipedia, only about 18 percent of the biographies in English are dedicated to women, the rest are about  achievements of mostly white men. That‘s why it is crucial to improve the way women and ethnic minorities are recognized on Wikipedia. 

One of the more popular projects I was involved in, which now has been unfortunately suspended, was called “Did this really happen?” We collected testimonies of female scientists about their experience with sexism, and then we turned them into comic strips and published them on our web page. We ended up gathering hundreds of testimonies, and about 40 percent of those were turned into a comic strip. We even wrote an article about it in a scientific journal, and there was quite a lot of feedback, so I think it served its purpose.  

I have actually been surprised at the amount of positive feedback this kind of work has brought. I would have expected that most scientists would just shrug it off, but usually they recognize that there’s something there. The greatest satisfaction for me is when I hear someone say ‘Hm, I also sometimes say things like that, and I didn’t realize that it’s problematic, I’ll be more careful next time.’ And this comes, of course, mostly from men. 

Unfortunately, I think these negative stereotypes about women, like that they are not as good at math and natural sciences as men, begin shaping girls’ ideas about themselves really early on. So, I am now working on a new project of my own, which is almost finished. I found six female illustrators who created artwork of famous female scientists, which will be put on informational posters, which would be placed in schools and on the internet. It’s really important for me to do work that helps the community around me, that has potential to bring about change, to improve things.

DISCOVER MORE ABOUT THE MOVEMENT PROJECT

The content of this publication is the sole responsibility of Herstory and AMIGA and does not necessarily reflect the position of the Anna Lindh Foundation or the European Union. www.annalindhfoundation.org

#9 Rula & Sima Kuhail سيما كحيل

Rula and Sima by Amanda Fawadleh

Parallel Story #8

Rula & Sima Kuhail سيما كحيل

Palestine to Canada

Palestine to UAE

This parallel story was put forward by the Jerusalem Center for Women for Movement

Both Rula and Sima are originally from cities that suffer greatly from the Israeli Occupation, which played a significant role in their emigration stories. In fact, Sima and Rula have many things in common, the two of them were born in Jerusalem. However, Sima is originally from Gaza. Both of them got married and left Palestine with their husbands. Moreover, both Sima and Rula are extremely ambitious self-made women, who studied and worked abroad. And finally, the two women always wanted to return to their homeland; Rula now lives in Palestine, whereas Sima is working towards becoming a licensed landscape architect in Canada, hoping one day to return to Palestine and utilize her experience towards building a free Palestine.

Rula’s story is first. To skip to Sima’s story click here.

---

Rula’s Story

A Palestinian Jerusalemite, who was born in Jerusalem in 1968.

Studied sociology at Birzeit University.

Before the end of Rula’s first year of university, the first intifada had begun. Universities and educational institutions were completely closed by an Israeli military order, and the entire Palestinian territories have become a war zone. During this period and at the beginning of her second year, she traveled to Britain and Norway to represent her university, and participate in student conferences in order to raise awareness on the policy of ignorance that Israel is trying to impose on Palestinians by closing universities and educational institutions.

Rula met a Palestinian student who studied electronic engineering in Britain. They agreed to stay in contact.

Upon her return from Britain, and due to the closure of universities, she volunteered in a media institution. After nearly two years she became a correspondent for one of the Arab radio stations. Rula learned a lot from everyone around her, and after the reopening of Palestinian universities, she studied and worked at the same time.

In her third year of university, the young man whom she met in Britain proposed to her. Due to his father’s migration to an Arab country at the end of the 1950s, he was born and raised in that country. Neither of his parents was allowed to visit Palestine. Rula got engaged and after a year got married in Jordan, she moved to Dubai with her husband. It was very difficult for her to work there, as the visa she got didn’t allow her to, she tried hard to find a job, but to no avail.

Rula got pregnant with her only child after three years of marriage, and decided to go back to her family in Jerusalem to give birth to her child there, in order to be able to obtain an Israeli ID number for him. She used to hear a lot about the suffering of children who are born outside Palestine or Jerusalem in particular, as we are under the Israeli occupation and Israel's ultimate goal is to expel Jerusalemites in particular and Palestinians in general from the Palestinian lands.

She gave birth to her son in 1997, and here her real suffering began. The occupation did not allow her husband to enter Jerusalem. Moreover, the Israeli Ministry of Interior in Jerusalem refused to issue a birth certificate for her child, as his father didn’t have a Palestinian hawiya (identity card).

For more than six months, she had been trying to obtain a birth certificate for her child so that they could travel and see his father. Yet all attempts were unsuccessful, until her lawyer told her that she could use her child’s birth notification to travel with him until the age of five. After that her child would not be able to enter or leave Jerusalem.

She traveled several times before her child reached the age of three, after that she returned to start the procedures for obtaining a birth certificate, and the suffering continued for more than two year. She and her child were in Jerusalem, while her husband was in the UAE waiting for them to come back. The occupier also denied her husband a visa to enter Palestine even for several days.

Her husband started persuading her to give up on the identity and the birth certificate, whereas she insisted on keeping her identity and demanding a birth certificate for her child who was born in Jerusalem.

Rula says: “We learned our biggest lesson as Palestinians when we left Jaffa and Haifa under the occupiers’ threat in 1948, as a result we became refugees all over the world”.

As a mother, Rula chose her child and his future over her husband. She got divorced and stayed in Jerusalem with her child.

Life was very hard, as the second intifada had begun, and the situation kept worsening. Rula was not able to get a job at the beginning. She started working from home as a news editor. After that she worked as a freelance journalist. Later, RuIa worked as a project coordinator and a media consultant with an American feminist NGO. She also worked in an American NGO specialized in the production of documentary films, after more than three years, Rula became a documentary film producer.  A Palestinian TV channel offered Rula an opportunity to present a program that calls to benevolence, and urges social and family solidarity. After years, "Falasteen Al-Khair" became the main Palestinian program. Rula registered it as a non-profit charitable organization that has staff and an elected board of directors. This organization enjoys a good reputation not only in Palestine, but also in many other countries around the world.

---

Sima’s Story

My name is Sima Kuhail سيما كحيل, and if I was to shortly introduce myself, I would say I’m a Palestinian landscape architect in process, and a mother of two.

There is one question I usually struggle answering: “where are you from?”, although it sounds like a simple question, but its answer carries some layers of complications. When I am in Canada my answer is “I am from Palestine”, as simple as that, or so I think. While some people actually know where Palestine is and know about the Palestinian cause, I find myself either explaining that I am from Palestine not Pakistan, or that no Palestine and Israel are not the same, or actually giving a mini history lesson to the person asking and wanting to know a little bit more. Answering this question wasn’t easy when I used to live in Palestine either. I could not identify as belonging to one specific geographical area. I was born in Jerusalem in the early 80s to a Gazan father and a Hebron mother, I spent my childhood in Hebron, and grew up in Ramallah.

Although I am not a refugee, nor have I experienced their stories, but I can slightly understand their up rootedness. I have no access to Jerusalem the city I was born in, and I lost access to Gaza, my father’s hometown 21 years ago when the second intifada took place. I have just started my freshman year as a student of Architectural Engineering at Birzeit University. Commuting from Ramallah to Birzeit included no daily routine trip, we never knew if the road is blocked or not, whether to drive directly or to take long detours, commute with private cars or rely on public taxis. But for more than two years, all of Palestinian cities and villages were disconnected from one another, and there was no direct access, I remember carrying my final projects’ sheets and scale models in taxis to Surda check point, walk to the other end of Surda checkpoint, around 1 km, and then take another taxi to Birzeit. It didn’t matter whether it was sunshine, rain, or snow, whether the route was blocked by demonstrations, tear gas or simply refusing access by the soldiers at the checkpoints, the projects made their way to studios.

My professional work experience was as risky and full of adventures as my study experience. The thing about living under occupation is that you learn to adapt to any extreme measure by your occupier. I worked for the following 3 years in Ramallah as an architect, after which I married and moved to Riyadh, KSA. At that time women were not allowed to work in architecture, but I was able to work as an interior designer on fine end projects. I worked for a couple of years in firms before I had my first child, I never understood how crippling it is to live in a system that didn’t allow me to continue in a full-time job. Daycares were extremely expensive, the hours didn’t match any of the job’s hours, and I refused give in to the norm in Riyadh and leave my child with a home nanny. A year after I had My second child, I decided to work as a freelancer on private projects, and I was able to work directly with clients in Riyadh and Ramallah.

I immigrated to Canada with my family few years ago, where I pursued a master’s degree in landscape architecture. The study experience was different than that I had while in Birzeit. For starters, there were no checkpoints and military occupation in Canada. Second, I now have 2 kids, and a husband who mostly travels for work. My kids were part of my studio life many times during my 3 year study. They shared my working space, my classes, even my tests – at one occasion-. They shared my research activities, my site visits, and my community meetings. I am hoping that their memories of this time of their lives pushes them to persevere no matter what.

I wrote my thesis during the coronavirus pandemic, while on lockdown during the first wave, I constantly remembered the invasion of Ramallah city during my undergraduate study and the curfew imposed by the Israeli military in 2002. Back then there was no technology capacity to allow for online meetings and classes. Our classes, studios and tests were conducted in Sakakini Cultural Center during the few hours of curfew lifting each week. Thanks for the technological development, I was able to work remotely and defend my master’s thesis virtually. I graduated recently, and I’m working towards becoming a licensed landscape architect in Canada, hoping one day that I return to Palestine and utilize my experience towards building a free Palestine.

DISCOVER MORE ABOUT THE MOVEMENT PROJECT

The content of this publication is the sole responsibility of Herstory and Jerusalem Center for Women and does not necessarily reflect the position of the Anna Lindh Foundation or the European Union. www.annalindhfoundation.org

#10 Ifrah Ahmed and Mary Harney

Ifrah & Mary by Aisling Clancy

Parallel Story #9

Ifrah Ahmed & Mary Harney

Somalia & Ireland

This parallel story was put forward by Herstory and AkiDwA for Movement

Ifrah Ahmed came to Ireland from Somalia in 2006 as a teenager. From personal experience, she leant her voice to the Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) campaign in Ireland and Europe and later founded the Ifrah Foundation. She is one of the world's top international FGM/C eradication advocates and activists and recently, a film about her life was released called The Girl from Mogadishu. Mary Harney was born in a Mother and Baby Home and later incarcerated in an industrial school where she suffered almost daily beatings. She emigrated to London to try to find her mother, and later to America for further education where she became an activist. She is currently taking part in the Collaborative Forum for transitional justice for mothers and children that were institutionalized in Irelands’ notorious mother and baby units.

Ifrah’s story is first. To skip to Mary’s story click here.

---

Ifrah’s Story

Ifrah is an Irish/Somali activist, campaigner and CSO director working for the elimination of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM). Having arrived in Ireland in 2006, aged 17, she set up her first organisation, United Youth of Ireland in 2008, in response to youth immigrant integration issues in her country of adoption. From personal experience, she leant her voice to the FGM campaign in Ireland and further afield in Europe and turned her focus to the specific gender issue of FGM by founding the Civil Society Organisation that carries her name, Ifrah Foundation in 2012. Now a charitable foundation registered in Ireland and Somalia, Ifrah Foundation has partnered on a wide variety of projects delivering impactful results with international NGOs as varied as Amnesty International, UNICEF and UNFPA in East Africa and has formed strategic partnerships with governmental agencies on policy and legislation, working at ministerial level as well as with religious leaders, international media experts, particularly the Global Media Campaign founded by The Guardian and community empowerment and education programs at grass roots level.

Her focus over the past five years has been to deliver programs in Somalia intended to provide the evidence based results that inform Ifrah Foundation’s scoping of its proposed national action plan for the abandonment of FGM in Somalia in line with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal of FGM eradication by 2030.

In 2020, a movie - A Girl From Mogadishu - based on the testimony of Ifrah, and directed by Mary McGuckian, was released in theatres across Ireland. A Girl from Mogadishu celebrates the power of testimony, ‘for when women find the courage to stand-up, speak out, and tell their truth, the impact can be so inspiring and empowering that act as a meaningful catalyst for change.’

The GPO in Dublin illuminates in honour of Ifrah for the 2020 International Herstory Light Festival

---

Mary’s Story

TW; violence

I was born in the Bessborough Mother and Baby Home in Cork. Born out of wedlock, I was considered an ‘illegitimate’ child by the State. I was removed from my mother when I was two and was illegally ‘fostered.’ At age five, I was taken under Ward of Court and incarcerated in the Good Shepherd Industrial School. Like many children at this institution, I suffered beatings and forced daily labour. Education consisted of religion, reading, writing, and arithmetic. One day, a teacher, Miss O’Donnell – ‘Miss’— noticed bruises on my arms and advised me to use stories and my imagination to lessen the feelings of pain during the beatings. Miss also told me to keep reading as you can teach yourself anything if you can read. 

At 16 ½, I was released from my Court sentence and could leave the Good Shepherds. I discovered libraries and delved into History, Literature, and Geography. At 17, I went to London to look for my mother. I wandered for a period, homeless. I eventually traced my mother, and we were reunited in Cardiff, where I also discovered that I had two sisters. Craving adventure, I signed-up to be a soldier, and without formal education, passed the entrance exam. When I finished my Army service, I joined the London Fire Brigade as an emergency dispatcher for twenty years.
In my 40s, I applied to third-level education only to find I was not eligible so I decided to travel. On my travels in America, I came upon College of the Atlantic in Maine. I applied to study there and despite my lack of formal education, I was accepted. I was an activist at college. I helped form peer education groups that went into high schools and taught HIV/AIDS prevention through the medium of art and theatre. The team was also part of the first state-wide ‘Growing up Gay’ conference in Maine. In 1996, I graduated with a BA in Human Ecology. The proudest moment was seeing my mother at my graduation, cheering for me. 

Mary as ‘Sister Mary Vergin’ on the Ridiculouse’

After I attended the Ryan Commission’s Investigation into Child Abuse, Redress Board in the mid-noughties to give evidence of my time in the Industrial School, I suffered severely with PTSD and depression. During that time, I devised a method of therapy that helped me deal with my trauma. I created a stand-up comedy persona called Sister Mary Vergin’ on the Ridiculouse. I performed in theaters, and small clubs and gatherings in the town I lived in and surrounding towns in Maine. This comedy act was used to raise funds to combat HIV/AIDS in our community. The first show Sister Mary appeared at was called Harney’s Blarney’s and we raised $3,000 the first night. I credit Sister Mary with aiding my recovery from trauma and for bringing much needed humor and laughter to people.

Mary and her partner

My experience of being an immigrant in the UK was one of racist name calling; because of my Irish accent I was called “thick Mick” and “Stupid Paddy” and told to go back where I came from. It wasn’t until I joined the British Army that I was accepted. The obstacles I came up against arose mostly because of my lack of education, for example when I tried to get into college, the education I had received in the Industrial school was considered to be below the standard required for University. In America however, I was immediately welcomed, people seemed to fall in love with my Irish accent and almost everyone I met insisted they had an Irish heritage. The UK offered me opportunities to travel and earn a good living with salaries that allowed me to buy my first house. The UK is also the place where I became aware of the power of activism to confront social injustices. The college I attended in the USA provided me with my first opportunity to believe in myself and my capabilities to attend college and to succeed. Here my advocacy skills were improved and my activism on behalf of disenfranchised people took off.

In 2012, I returned to Ireland - the place that had denied me both my mother and a formal education - to pursue a Masters Degree in Irish Studies. I graduated in 2013 from NUIG with first class honours. In 2014, the College of the Atlantic unanimously voted for me to be guest speaker at Commencement. At this ceremony, I was surprised with an honourary Masters of Philosophy. Since then, I have lectured college undergraduates, and been a key activist in Ireland, a part of survivors’ groups seeking meaningful human rights-centered redress. I was part of an advocacy group that successfully lobbied Irish legislators to halt legislation that would have seen a 75-year seal of survivors’ documents.  And I ain’t done yet — at age 72, I recently graduated with another first-class honours degree, an LLM in International Human Rights. I am currently tutoring Human Rights Masters level students in a pilot scheme to enable them to teach the history of the Mother and Baby Institutions to high school students.

Mary and Herstory Founder Melanie Lynch

I believe that my experience of being institutionalized for the early part of my life has contributed to my never feeling anywhere is “home.” I have permanent ‘wanderlust’ - I can pack up and go at the drop of a hat. My heart however is with my partner in the USA and the support I receive to follow my dreams, I have, over the years created a network of supportive friends as far and wide as New Zealand, Australia, Canada, throughout the USA and the UK. Maybe it is not so strange to say that I have had a harder time in adjusting to Ireland as one of my ‘homes.’ Galway is my heart city and the support network of friends I have built up here is incredibly strong and supportive of me.

Mary Harney illuminates Sean Ross Abbey, former Mother & Baby Home for the 2021 Herstory Light Show

On Brigid’s Day 2021, Herstory journeyed into the heart of Ireland to help heal the heartbreak of the Mother And Baby Homes scandal. Iconic buildings illuminated to witness & honour all who suffered. Filmmaker Peter Martin captures this pilgrimage of light in Solas, a hauntingly beautiful film.

 DISCOVER MORE ABOUT THE MOVEMENT PROJECT

Artist Info

Aisling Clancy

Facebook: aislingclancyart

Instagram: @aislingclancyart

Twitter: @aislingcfineart

The content of this publication is the sole responsibility of Herstory and does not necessarily reflect the position of the Anna Lindh Foundation or the European Union. www.annalindhfoundation.org

#11 Unknown woman & Ibtisam Barakat

Portrait by Aya Saleh

Parallel Story #10

Unknown Woman and Ibtisam Barakat

? to Palestine?

Palestine to the USA

This parallel story was put forward by the Jerusalem Center for Women for Movement

Ibtisam has been paired with an ‘unknown woman’ because due to the Israeli occupation, it is unsafe for women in Palestine to share their stories.

---

Ibtisam’s Story

I am from Jerusalem and grew up in Ramallah under Israeli military occupation. As a Palestinian I was forced to live as an immigrant/refugee in my own homeland. One dies a thousand times a day living as a slave to people with guns and also to those in the sexist patriarchy.

So I immigrated to the USA at the age of 22. I went alone, but had with me a great desire to succeed as a female and as a Palestinian Arab. I love my identities not because they set me apart from others who don’t belong to them, but because they point to the diverse, multiple expressions of humanity’s genius to produce endless cultures.

My memoir “Tasting the Sky, a Palestinian Childhood” won many awards and is being read and taught in many countries and languages across the world. My most recent book in Arabic “The Lilac Girl” (الفتاة الليلكية) just won the Sheikh Zayed Book Award for creativity in writing for young readers.

Emigrating gave me my right to move, to find myself, and to help in humanity’s quest for voice for all.

DISCOVER MORE ABOUT THE MOVEMENT PROJECT

The content of this publication is the sole responsibility of Herstory and the Jerusalem Center for Women and does not necessarily reflect the position of the Anna Lindh Foundation or the European Union. www.annalindhfoundation.org

#12 Maria Jan & Tea

Portrait by Nino Bektashashvili

Parallel Story #11

Maria & Tea

USA & Slovenia

This parallel story was put forward by APIS Institute (Slovenia) for Movement

Maria Jan is an American woman with Slovenian and Macedonian roots. She grew up in New York, and after high school she continued her studies in London, where she settled as a musician (pianist). In 2018 she met her life partner who was from Slovenia. Love brought her back to her roots, to Slovenia, where she lives with her husband and two children. Tea is a dancer who was born and raised in Slovenia. She used to travel a lot, but now she lives in London with her Nigerian partner and two daughters. Tea's father also followed his love abroad. He came to Slovenia from Bosnia to be with Tea's mother and have a family.

---

Maria’s Story

Maria Jan grew up in New York, Long Island, where she had a wonderful childhood. Her experience of America is a feeling of an open place where everyone can be accepted. “It gives you a feeling of bigness; and it’s really in the culture that you can achieve anything if you work hard, no matter where you come from”. She understands that not everyone might have this feeling, but she does, because she grew up with it. In her opinion this very aspect of American culture is wonderful. 

In New York, her family was perceived as Eastern European. Her mother is half Macedonian with Jewish heritage, and her maternal grandfather was Slovenian. Culturally, her family was not Slovene. When she was younger, they came to Slovenia to holiday and there is a picture of her from Kranjska Gora when she was about seven years old. Later they stopped coming, as it was much easier to go on a holiday somewhere around New York. 

Going to school was a defining moment for her. She finished high school in New York, but for college, she decided to go to Europe. England was an obvious choice because of the language. She moved to London when she was 17 years old and was one of the youngest at the College. She obtained an undergrad degree, got a job and lived in London.  Maria Jan never went back to New York to live full time. She is not only a New Yorker and US citizen, but also British. Culturally she considers herself British. 

Maria Jan was very happy in London as an independent person who enjoyed museums and concerts and her social life but once she had children things changed completely. London, for her, as one of the nicest cities, quickly became one of the most complicated and expensive places to live. 

Maria Jan met Igor, her partner, when she was on holiday in Slovenia with her mother. After some time of dating, each of them in their own country, he was about to join her in the UK, when they discovered that his job change would be a huge step back in his career, so it made more sense that she joined him in Slovenia. This was also something that they both wished for their family. They wanted their children to grow up in a clean and safe country. And as Slovenia is one of the safest countries in Europe, the new change seemed very appealing to them. She arrived in Slovenia in 2018.

Maria believed London would be a harsher environment for families. Maternity leave there is not a year like it is in Slovenia and lots of people rely on grandparents for childcare. In Slovenia, Maria Jan and Igor are on their own, but they manage even without it pretty well. In England, it would be different. They would have had to have an au-pair, who was supposed to live with them.  

In Slovenia, Maria Jan feels at home. People are supportive and the natural landscape is amazing. Slovenians speak English so well that she feels she almost doesn’t need to learn Slovene.  The conditions for kids are fantastic, parks are so close; kids are all around… In London, it was a 30 minutes' walk to the park/playground. You are tired when you get there!

About her immigration experience to Slovenia, Maria can’t say that much yet. For half of the time that she’s been in Slovenia she was pregnant, and the other half she was, like everyone else, living through a global pandemic. However, when she arrived in Slovenia first she had quite a cultural shock. She is perceived as a foreigner and that is how she feels herself as well. She lives in the centre of Ljubljana with many other foreigners around. She formed a lovely international mummy circle and this is now a part of her new identity. Being a mum is the most important thing to her. 

Maria Jan’s first identity is as a New Yorker with eastern European roots, but later she adopted a new identity as a Londoner. She considers herself British; her adult life began in Britain, and for most of her life she was British. For her, her life began when she became more independent and that was in Britain. Now, in Slovenia, expats see her as culturally British with a slight American accent. She feels a Yugoslav identity as well, which might sound strange today, but because her mother is half Macedonian/Slovene, this is an important part of her heritage and many identities she carries. She feels all those identities are of great importance to her.

In her opinion the world nowadays is more accessible especially in the EU. Some people can choose their identity and this is exactly what she did. She chose to come to Slovenia for her children, that they can have a better childhood. 

Maria Jan thinks that Slovene women are professional, hardworking and very family-oriented. She finds many similarities with British women. Being a mother changed her perspective on humanity. Before she was free, she went wherever she wanted to go, now her time is mostly dedicated to her children. As a musician, her inspirations are music and art in general. Her job also inspires her. During the pandemic, she started teaching at a school in Austria where she teaches piano to some thirty students. In her family, you may not find musicians, but they are all very supportive of education.

---

Tea’s Story

As a child growing up in Slovenia, Tea liked to be the centre of attention. She will never forget the day she started to dance and her teacher recognized her talent. She got a chance to join the group she was dancing with for 15 years.  Dance, music, and traveling are her red thread and inspiration. When she dances, she transforms into another person. On the stage, she forgets everything around her; she can be anything she wants to be. 

Tea always had a sense of curiosity about her, a trait that brought her to many countries and different adventures, and finally to interracial marriage. She loves exploring new cultures, meeting local people, talking and hanging around with them, seeing how they live, how they think, and what they do. Her perspective on humanity changed through traveling and life abroad. What counts for her, is being a human. She saw humanity wherever she went and traveling changed and widened her perception more than her own personal experience of migration.

Tea met her present partner in London in 2014. Having gone through a divorce the year before, she was planning just to enjoy life, to breathe, and be on her own for a while… but as soon as she closed one door, new doors opened. On the last day of a 4-day trip to London, Tea was wandering the Tate Gallery when she met someone. They were both enjoying the Picasso exhibition. Having experienced long distance relationships before, she was hesitant to pursue anything with him, but as he was very persistent she gave him a chance. After a little more than a year together, she moved to London permanently to be with him. Four months later she got a job, and very soon after, two kids came along, one after another.

Tea and her partner are both passionate travellers and dancers. Even though her partner came to Europe very young, there are still huge cultural differences between them and sometimes, as she says, you have to swallow your ego to be able to find a common solution.

She believes she was always meant to live abroad but as a child, she could have never imagined ending up in the UK. In her family, her father was the first who migrated from Bosnia to Slovenia, and like Tea, he did it for love. Tea was 35 when she migrated and in her opinion it is much harder to move to another country in your thirties as you already know exactly what you want and that makes adjusting so difficult. While she is trying to adopt as much as possible, she says that she is a grown-up person and she feels she will never become British.

Personally, Tea doesn’t feel as though she has had any negative experiences as an immigrant. She was working for just six months when she gave birth and then a pandemic happened which meant, like everyone, she was confined to her own home. She couldn’t socialize much. In general, she thinks people are good and open-minded, she has never got negative comments about her background or how she speaks and dresses. As an emigrant, returning home doesn’t give her the complete feeling of ‘home’ anymore. It bothers her the way people think in Slovenia. In her opinion, she feels that they are stuck in their patterns. In London, she doesn’t feel like this. Otherwise, she loves Slovenia and she misses it a lot. She would love to go back permanently, but she knows it would be really hard for her partner to find a proper job, to learn the language, and to arrange all the bureaucracy that makes Slovenia so much more complicated than the UK. Migration changed her in a way that she appreciates her own country more than she used to. Time that she spends with her friends and family now feel very precious and much appreciated. She wants her daughters to visit their grandparents as often as possible. At this preschool age, she feels Slovenia is a much better environment for raising kids than the UK. Despite having lived in London for more than 5 years, she doesn’t feel at home there. She misses her family, friends, nature, air, food… She misses four seasons and hot sunny summers as she remembers them from home.

She thinks in EU countries women are more and more emancipated and differences are not that big. Though she is more in the expats and international community, she thinks British women could learn from Slovenian women how to prepare a proper meal, which is not just bought ready and frozen in the supermarket. In her opinion, Slovenians are active people and there are many nature lovers and eco-friendly-oriented people among them.

Her life is definitely what she always wanted to have. She is proud of herself and she would never change anything. In five years, she mentioned, we might find her back in Slovenia. She feels very sorry that her parents can’t follow her daughters’ growth on a daily basis. Right now, family takes up much of her time, but she believes in five years things will be different for her and she is looking forward to having more time for herself. In any case, her home will always be the people she loves, her family, and her friends in Slovenia and the UK. 

DISCOVER MORE ABOUT THE MOVEMENT PROJECT

The content of this publication is the sole responsibility of Herstory and the APIS Institute and does not necessarily reflect the position of the Anna Lindh Foundation or the European Union. www.annalindhfoundation.org

#13 Margaret Stephen & Sally Mulready OBE

Sally and Margaret by Anna Matykiewicz

Parallel Story #12

Margaret Stephen & Sally Mulready OBE

Sudan & Ireland

This parallel story was put forward by Herstory and AkiDwA for Movement

Born and raised in Sudan, Margaret Stephen was separated from her mother as a teenager due to the outbreak of war and forced into marriage. Eventually reuniting with her family, she risked her life crossing the border into Uganda where she lived in a refugee camp for 14 years. There, along with a handful of other women, she fought for the right of Sudanese people to remain in the camp when officers were trying to force them to return to Sudan. Now in Ireland, Margaret is currently working toward the creation of campaigns to help the women of the refugee camp that she once found herself in. Born in St. Patrick’s Mother and Baby home in Ireland, Sally Mulready was separated from her mother when she was 4 to be raised in St. Philomena’s Home. Upon emigrating to the UK aged 16, she was able to receive an education and start a political career that would lead her to a seat on the Council of State in Ireland, advising President Michael D. Higgins. A co-founder of the Irish Women Survivors Network and past Director of the Irish Elderly Advice Network, Sally has spent decades working for Irish emigrants abroad and her community at large. Despite their tough starts to life, both Margaret and Sally have dedicated much of their time to the improvement of the lives of those around them.

Margaret’s story is first. To skip to Sally’s click here.

---

Margaret’s Story

TW; violence, assault, rape, exploitation

I was born in 1972 and grew up in Sudan. We lived on a farm and had a big family; two boys and four girls. When my father passed away when we were children, my uncle came and he took the eldest girl, my big sister, so at 8-years old I was left as the eldest child to my mother.

When war broke out in Sudan in 1983, I had to stop going to school. Shortly after, I was caught out in the town of my uncle and separated from my mother, and there was no way for me to get back to her. I was in a bad situation and I was married off to a soldier when I was 16. I was three or four months pregnant when my husband had to go off to fight and I was left on my own. There were no cars or transport anymore, so people were walking for about two weeks to get into town. My mother was telling people who were coming in to please find me and look after me. So, a few people found me, and I went with them back home and I had the baby with my mother beside me. Soon after, we had to go into the woods and cut wood to make a house because what we were living in wouldn’t have been classed as a house - you had to kneel to get through the door. We dug gold and sold it and for a while life wasn’t as bad.

In 1994, I was at the border of Uganda and Sudan. I had TB, and I was there for treatment with my son and younger brother. Then fighting broke out again and my mother joined us. By that time there were men with guns raping women, so I told my mother to take the children across the border to Uganda. If these men didn’t like you, they could throw you in jail and take the children away and this guy who had been harassing me was planning on taking the two kids. I told my mother I’d follow later. I had to swim in the Nile to cross into Uganda to join them. In 1998 I was reunited with my sisters after searching for them for a long time. We were so happy because at that time if you couldn’t find your relatives you just had to assume that they were dead.

I stayed in Uganda in a refugee camp for about 14 years. I got married to another man and he began the process of getting us to America, but it never happened because some people had stolen our form and went to America under our name. So, we went to Kampala and stayed on a street outside the office for a week with no food or water to try and get someone to sort out our problem. We filled out more forms, returned to the camp and then got a rejection letter. There was no interview or anything, just rejection. Then my husband disappeared. No one knew where he was. Then someone said they’d seen him on a bus going to Kenya. He disappeared forever; he never came back. So, I was left in the camp, just me and my son.

Life became worse for me then. Everyone knew I was alone and anyone passing by looking for sex or for a fight could break in and did. One day there was a man who was getting married and he asked me to contribute money to it and I said for what!? I said why should I contribute the money? No! And then I got beaten so badly that they had to take me to the hospital in an ambulance. Life was hard, I was cutting grass to sell for money, I was broken.

Then in and around the time that the civil war in Sudan ended, in 2005, the camp officers began saying that the Sudanese inhabitants had to go back! But we’d been in the camp so long that we didn’t have anyone back in Sudan anymore. Where were we going to go? So, me and three other women went to talk to the officers, but they would only speak to Congolese people, so we had to wait until they went for a break to talk to them. We talked to this woman called Vivian and I told her she had to listen to our problems. I had a big fight with her about it. She called the police and we told them people needed to listen to our problems. They rang the commander and then it went to the office in Kampala and after that a white man from Geneva came to interview us and I told him how long I was there, and about my husband, and that I couldn’t pay my son’s school fees anymore. I told him I couldn’t go back to Sudan because I had nobody there. So, after my big fight, they built an office in the camp. People didn’t have to go into the town to the office and sleep on the street for a few days anymore, they could just go to the office in the camp. That building is there today because of our fight.

Then I was going to go to Canada. We filled out a form and we got our letters and then a man who I knew from the camp came to me and he was saying ‘congratulations’ and I showed him my letter. I didn’t know then, but he stole my number and wrote his own letter to the office in Kampala and told them that I was his wife and that I was running away with his son! When I went for my interview, I waited on the bus for the man with the list of names to call out my name, but he never did, and I was so confused. After a lot of frustration, I found someone who could translate English and I told him my problem and he talked to someone and that’s when I heard about the letter the man from the camp had written. I told them that I knew him from the camp but that he was not in my family. We were sent back to the camp.

Sometime later, a woman came and said she knew all of this wasn’t my fault and that she’d help me. They were going to give me an interview to go to a new country, Ireland. I had never heard of Ireland, they told me it was near the UK, in the water and it was cold. Within six months from then everything was done, and I came to Ireland with my son. We got on a bus to Mayo and we were there for six weeks before we went to Kilkenny. Our whole group settled in Kilkenny where we were given English classes; I’ve been going for nearly four years now.

In Africa you don’t get any help from the government or the community. If you’re sick you die, but here, there are people who can help you. It can be difficult to find work in Ireland though, especially when you’re on your own like I was in the beginning. For five years I did work experience in Oxfam. Now I’m a housekeeper in a hotel. I was able to go back and see my mammy in 2018 and when I was leaving, she was sad and said she may never see me again. I told her I could come back any time. I told her I look after myself now and I could see her any time.

It's not all positive; I met a man when I was in the post office one time recently and he asked where I was from and when I was going back. I told him if I go back, I’ll let him know and that he can go with me. He was a middle-aged man. Most people know now though that people from Africa are people too. Our children are going to school together and they’re learning from each other.

Being a migrant changed my life. Back in Africa you work so hard just to find food and survive, and your mind gets blocked, but since I’ve come to Ireland, I’ve learned new things and my memories have begun to come back. I’ve done a lot of community work here in Kilkenny, but I really want to help the women in Uganda in those refugee camps. I feel like I can’t do too much because I’m trying to look after myself here with rent and food, but those women need help and that’s what I’m going to do.

---

Sally’s Story

TW; Mother & Baby Home

Growing up in Ireland

Sally was born in 1950 in Dublin, Ireland and because her mother, Sheila, was unwed, she spent the first four years of her life with her in St. Patrick’s Mother & Baby Home on the Navan Road. Sheila, desperate to remain with her baby, worked hard as a domestic servant there in return for her keep in the Home, until one day out of the blue she was told that Sally was going the following day, that they could no longer keep a growing child in the situation that she was in. When they transferred Sally to St. Philomena’s, run by the Daughters of Charity, it took some time to settle her, as she was traumatised by the separation from her mother whom she had been very close to. Sheila stayed in the area for as long as she could to be near her daughter, but eventually, when Sally was six, she left for England to find work.

Sally remembered St. Philomena’s as a ‘very comfortable place, but they had a nun in charge who was a very violent woman.’ The nuns looked after the children, physically, although ‘there wasn’t a lot of TLC. They weren’t naturally comforting or encouraging. They fed us well, made sure we looked well and sent us to school. I would say that, having buried, in the way young children are forced to do, the trauma of my separation from my mother, the first 4 years of my time in the industrial school had a lot of positives. The negatives were down to that one nun.’

It was normal practice for children to be transferred from St. Philomena’s to St. Mary’s, Lakeland when they reached the ages of 7 or 8[1], however this came as a complete shock to Sally and the girls in St. Philomena’s.

‘…all of a sudden one night, we were told that we were being transferred to a new institution. The fact that we were taken overnight was really shocking for us. We were taken by ambulances up to the next institution at St. Mary’s. Thirty of us were brought there together. They had a list with our names, and we were put into these different groups and it was a challenge then for who was the strongest, who was the fittest, who was in charge. I was born with one hand, so I immediately became the subject of attention. Even the nuns came to have a look…’

Emigration to England

Sally left institutional care on the 29 January 1966. Her mother was working as a waitress in England, so after a short stay with an aunt, Sally took the boat to join her there. Anticipating her arrival, Sheila had found a flat for the two of them in North London, but Sally found it difficult to live in just one room, having had lived in an institution for 16 years. With very little education, she discovered that she was quite unemployable in England so when her mother became a chief cook in a care home Sally went along with her to help out, ‘but a social worker spotted me and busied herself then with sorting me out. She took me to an employment agency, and they found me a job on the electricity board, and I worked there as a junior clerk for nine years.’

When Harold Wilson of the Labour Party became Prime Minister in 1964, he placed significant emphasis on the importance of education for all and luckily, Sally felt the benefit of that. ‘I basically got a national school education as an older teen and then took a few very menial exams and worked my way up – it took about eleven years - and then I eventually got a degree in history.’

Birmingham 6 Campaign and Political Work

Sally’s advocacy work began in the 1980s with the Birmingham Six. In 1975, six Irishmen living in Birmingham had been sentenced to life imprisonment following their false convictions for the Birmingham pub bombings of the previous year which had been attributed to the Provisional Irish Republican Army. After watching a documentary on the case, Sally became convinced of their innocence and worked with a handful of others to establish the first meeting of the London campaign, where she was elected Secretary. Their work complimented the campaigning being done by the wives of the men and numerous other individuals and groups. The campaign was ultimately successful and led to the eventual release of the men in 1991. Two years later, in 1993, Cruel Fate written by Sally and one the six men, Hugh Callaghan, was published detailing Hugh’s life and the circumstances which saw him arrested? Sally continued to support the men in the years that followed by campaigning for a change to Pension entitlements which allowed them, and all victims of miscarriages of justice, to access full State Pensions.

Sally’s political life did not end with the campaign. A member of the British Labour Party since 1980, she became an elected Labour Party Councillor in Chatham Ward in the London Borough of Hackney in 1997, and later, Speaker of Hackney from 2010 to 2011.     

Another memorable time in Sally’s political life was when she was appointed to the Council of State by President Michael D. Higgins. The opportunity to be a member of the Council was a great honour and privilege. “I witnessed our President and heard him speak and address audiences with graceful elegance, conviction, always moving and carried out with great humour.” Along with such eminent people as Michael Farrell, Civil Rights Campaigner, Judge Catherine McGuiness, the President had a very progressive group of people on his Council of State. “I loved working with both of them.”  Jack Lane, historian,  says “Sally has been involved in the Irish Community for all her professional life and leaves a legacy that continues to  give great benefit to that  community through the many organisations and that she helped establish and sustain.”

The Irish Elderly Advice Network

Beyond politics, Sally became involved in community advocacy in the 1990s. By that time, it had become evident that there was a lot of poverty and destitution amongst the older Irish population living in private sector housing in London. Following the death of three elderly Irish people in their flats in Camden in 1993 (deaths that went unnoticed for some time), a group of elderly Irish women came together and established the Irish Elderly Advice Network (IEAN). After she left the electricity board, Sally got a job with the Islington council where she saw an advert for the IEAN –the purpose of the job was to seek out and devise a support network for elderly Irish people. She was the first member of staff hired. Initially only servicing people in the Camden area, the organisation has since grown to provide services nationwide. Sally spent the first three or four years developing the organisation and today the IEAN have 6,000 people on their mailing list. The essence of their work was, and still is, to provide advice, support, and empowerment to elderly Irish people. They also developed a choir which has been running for fifteen years and for which Sally has written numerous plays, the latest being The Nun’s Chorus which brings in her experience of living with nuns.

The Irish Women’s Survivor Network

In 1999, States of Fear[2]- a documentary produced by Mary Raftery which described the abuse suffered by children between 1930s - 1970s in the state childcare system of Ireland – aired, and everyone was talking about it. Because of the attention it got, the then Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, made an apology to the survivors of Irish institutional care and once that apology was made it led to a redress scheme being proposed and a huge investigation in the form of the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse which was established in 2000. Sally monitored the coverage of it:

‘…I rang up the relevant governmental Departments in Dublin to find out what plans they had for survivors not living in Ireland and I got a very watery, disinterested response – it was clear they hadn’t thought of survivors outside of Ireland. They told me initially that this investigation was not going to involve survivors living abroad and I told them that that can’t be and then with a number of other colleagues who had been in the institutions we fought for survivors from the UK to be accepted, and they agreed that it had to include everyone who was in the institutions…’

Along with other survivors, Sally helped set up the Irish Women’s Survivor Network in London in 2002. Her role was to monitor the government’s initiatives, plans and statements and report it back to the group. It was clear that survivors needed support networks and funding. It was obvious to Sally that they needed to employ professionals to support the work being done, so she managed to secure the Irish Government’s agreement for the creation of five Survivor Outreach Services around Britain so that they could provide advice and support to survivors and help them make their application to the redress board. Working alongside Sally through all of this, and ‘a true voice of support to the survivors’ was Phyllis Morgan. Both women had grown up together since their time in the Mother and Baby Home right through to St. Philomena’s and St. Mary’s.

These networks were survivor-run, and the one mistake Sally regrets making is that she feels she ‘should not have taken on a role that a civil servant could’ve done better. They would’ve had no pressure. They would’ve just been doing a job, whereas I was on the one hand a survivor looking for support the same as everyone else, but also, I was a kind of leader monitoring the work of survivors and monitoring what the Irish government were saying and what survivors wanted.’ When the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes and Certain Related Matters was published in January 2021, reflecting on her past mistake, Sally sent a letter to the relevant ministers with regard to this inquiry to advise them that they should appoint a support unit run by professionals as an advocacy service for survivors. From her own experience, she explained that there should be ‘a well-structured, independent unit set up that is able to give proper advice to survivors.’

A lifetime of organising, leading, and care for others has led Sally to touch the lives of so many people both in Britain and in Ireland. She has built a legacy of strength, warmth and vibrancy within the older Irish community in London. Through conversations with her family, it is clear that the profound sadness of her childhood separation from her mother was something that drove her to ever strive for love and for justice for those so consistently overlooked by those with power. Sally is seen by her husband, her four children and ten grandchildren as a constant source of love, support and kindness - and of outstanding courage. This is perhaps her most precious and enduring legacy.

Special thanks to Sally’s family who were a great help in putting her story together.

[1] The Journal, 11 Oct 2015. See: https://www.thejournal.ie/readme/mother-and-baby-home-st-patricks-2380868-Oct2015/ [accessed 6 May 2021].

[2] ‘Revealing a System of Abuse,’ RTÉ Archives, 2010. Accessed on 16 Feb. 2021: https://www.rte.ie/archives/category/society/2019/0424/1045440-mary-raftery-states-of-fear/.

DISCOVER MORE ABOUT THE MOVEMENT PROJECT

Artist Info

Anna Matykiewicz

Insta: @annamatart

The content of this publication is the sole responsibility of Herstory and does not necessarily reflect the position of the Anna Lindh Foundation or the European Union. www.annalindhfoundation.org

#14 Nijmeh Al-Atshan & Ghada Al-Atshan Shkoukani

Portrait by Yara Yasin

Parallel Story #13

Nijmeh Al-Atshan & Ghada Al-Atshan Shkoukani

Displacement within Palestine

Palestine to the USA

This parallel story was put forward by the Jerusalem Center for Women for Movement

Nijmeh’s Story

Nijmeh was born in 1928. When she was just 20-years old, she was forced to emigrate from Al-Haditheh village by Israeli Haganah during the 1948 Palestinian exodus (Al-Nakba).

What does Nakba mean?

‘The Nakba is Arabic for “catastrophe” or “calamity”, and it refers to the ethnic cleansing of Palestine at the hand of Zionist militias between 1947-1948 and the subsequent establishment of the state of Israel. This campaign of ethnic cleansing took place before, during and after the war of 1948, and saw approximately 800,000 Palestinians expelled from their homes, and over 530 Palestinian communities demolished.’

- DecolonizePalestine

At first, Nijmeh’s family lived for 4 years in Mukhmas (a Palestinian village in the Jerusalem Governorate), then they moved to Ramallah.

Nijmeh is a mother of 10: 6 sons, and 4 daughters. One of her daughters, Ghada Al-Atshan, emigrated to the USA.

You can hear more of Nijmeh’s story through her own testimony in the video below.

---

Ghada’s Story

Portrait by Yara Yasin

Ghada was born in 1964 in Ramallah. 31 years ago, Ghada emmigrated with her husband to the USA, where she got a degree in business administration.

Ghada opened an ice cream cake shop, which was closed after a while. Nowadays, she works in a pharmacy. She has a vey beautiful singing voice, and likes to sing. A mother of two, she lives now in Detroit, USA.

DISCOVER MORE ABOUT THE MOVEMENT PROJECT

The content of this publication is the sole responsibility of Herstory and the Jerusalem Center for Women and does not necessarily reflect the position of the Anna Lindh Foundation or the European Union. www.annalindhfoundation.org

#15 Nadeen & Jasna

Nadeen & Jasna by Oksana Ivanenko

Parallel Story #14

Nadeen & Jasna

Egypt & Slovenia

This parallel story was put forward by APIS Institute (Slovenia) for Movement

Nadeen is a young Egyptian woman who came to Slovenia for medical treatment. The initial move was very difficult for her as she did not know the language and was afraid to communicate with people. Except for her father, who went with her, she knew no one and felt lonely. Over time, she relaxed and began to educate herself. Her experience of migration has made her more independent and responsible, and although she remains Egyptian in culture and religion, she is grateful to Slovenia for introducing her to the world. Jasna is a Slovenian who lived in Cairo, Egypt, between 2007 and 2009. She went there after graduation to study Arabic. In the beginning, she struggled with the city, the language and cultural customs, however, later when she met her future husband, her life in Egypt became easier and less lonely. When she realized that they were expecting a baby, they decided to move to Slovenia…

---

Nadeen’s Story

Nadeen is a young Egyptian woman who spent her early childhood and primary school in Saudi Arabia, where her father was working. For secondary school, they went back to Egypt where she lived for six years. She has very fond memories of her childhood.

Nadeen came to Slovenia almost two years ago, when she was 20 years old and her original reason for coming was medical treatment. She joined her father who has a business here and now she will probably stay for good. When she first arrived here, she was very scared, lonely, and concerned. She was afraid to speak with people because she was afraid they would misunderstand her because her English was not that good. She relied on her father a lot. Whatever she wanted, she asked him.  

Though people always seemed friendly and she didn't encounter direct racism, sometimes when she walks on the street, she feels some are staring at her and it is an unpleasant feeling. She knows that people are looking at her scarf and it is not a friendly look. Fortunately, she never experienced a direct attack or insulting comments.

Over some time she relaxed and started talking to people, even though they may not have always understood her quite well. But to overcome her fear, she would put a smile on her face, and start to speak, and this made her feel much more comfortable. 

In the beginning, she missed her mother and sisters very much. In addition, she had many responsibilities: she had to take care of the household, go to the hospital for therapy, and get an education. She felt like she was alone in everything.  Meanwhile, her father worked in his shop, and she would be there to meet with Slovenians. They used to talk and have some intercultural exchange, but she didn't become friends with any of them. Her best friends here are Safra and Marwa. They are from Iraq and both of them are very important to her. 

Her worldview has changes a lot since she came to Slovenia. When she moved from Saudi Arabia to Egypt, she didn't need to learn a new language, it was still her mother tongue. After arriving in Slovenia, she started to have the ambition to study more, to learn more, and also to learn more languages. The whole experience made her a more responsible person because when you live abroad, she says, there come extra challenges and extra responsibilities.

Of course, she is surrounded by Slovenian influence, but at the same time, her identity hasn’t changed that much. She still has her Egyptian identity and culture, and she contributes to it too. Now, in Ramadan, she is doing all this Ramadan decoration. So, there is influence, but her religion and culture are staying with her. 

In Slovenia, she feels that people should be more connected and united, family ties are not as strong, family members do not take care of each other as much as they should. On the other hand, Egyptians and all Arabs are very temperamental and could learn composure from Slovenes regardless of the situation. Otherwise, her experience with Slovenes has been very good, they are very kind and empathetic. Also, in the hospital they were always really supportive and compassionate. However, she noticed that Slovenes are very hardworking and serious. They go home after work and there is no one anywhere after sunset. This is so very different from Egypt, where people are joking all the time despite the difficult political situation. In Egypt, she appreciates the people a lot, because they are alive. Though the situation in Egypt is bad, people are more connected to each other, they are really enjoying life. Taking leisure time and action. 

For Nadeen, home is where people are. As one Egyptian proverb says: »A place without people it should not be entered.« For her, places without people are without spirit. This doesn't mean only family, but also friends. Sometimes your girlfriend can be your shelter and you love her and trust her and feel good with her in a way that she becomes like your home. 

She hopes that in five years things will be very different for her. She will speak Slovene fluently, she plans to have a family and her own business and she would like to become a film director. But at the moment, she is mostly looking forward to the fact that the rest of her family will soon join her in Slovenia. This will help her to enjoy the country and really feel like at home.

---

Jasna’s Story

Jasna was born and raised in Slovenia, in the countryside, in close connection with nature. She has always loved reading, so the decision to study comparative literature came naturally. During her studies, she also attended an Arabic course and decided to upgrade her language skills after graduation. In 2007 she traveled to Egypt, Cairo.

Cairo is a metropolis and even if you don’t come from a small European country, it offers a huge number of challenges that all newcomers have to face. Crossing the streets, handling the traffic, finding a flat, and learning who to trust and to what extent, were the issues of her first days there. In school, she had a private teacher at the beginning. Classes were taking place every day and were very intensive. She was learning classical Arabic, but on the streets of Cairo people spoke local Egyptian Arabic, so she couldn't really practice the language the way she thought she would. 

At the beginning, it was also hard because she could count just on herself. Eventually, she met some other foreigners who traveled around or learned the language just like her and they exchanged their experiences with her and also gave her some tips and advice. She found some friends, but soon she learned that friendships abroad are not stable, especially with other foreigners, because they come and go, each of them has different timing, different amount of time to stay. Despite all this, she built some lifelong friendships that she appreciates to this day. 

After a while she got some Egyptian friends too. They used to spend time together, but they also had their own life in their own social circles which she couldn't really enter, sometimes because of the language barrier. 

Jasna was planning to stay in Egypt for six months. She had a return plane ticket and this was supposed to be the plan. But one month before she should have travelled back home, she met a man from Comoros and soon after they became a couple. Since she was with him, her stay in Egypt passed into a second phase, which also included deeper integration into Egyptian society. At the same time, she entered the Comorian community, another cultural environment. Although she lived in Cairo for two and a half years, she always felt only a visitor, a temporary resident of a country that would never really accept her among them. In a predominantly male world, she learned to stand up for herself and protect herself when needed. She only became close to Egyptian women when she started working for an advertising agency, where she also made new friends.

Her worldview and people skills expanded greatly with her stay in Egypt. She didn't try to know the whole magnificent Egyptian history, as much as she tried to understand contemporary Egyptian society and her own little position of observer among them. 

As a babysitter in a Polish diplomatic family, she also found herself in a role that reminded her of her female compatriots leaving their homes in the early 20th century to bring extra income to the families. They worked as maids and nannies in wealthier families in Cairo and Alexandria when both cities were significantly more cosmopolitan than they are today. They are called Alexandrines. The Alexandrian women did not enter the world voluntarily like Jasna. They separated from their husbands and young children with a broken heart. Upon their return, however, they were often accepted as foreigners. Jasna sometimes thought about herself as a modern Alexandrian woman, who chose to be in Cairo and was happy to be a nanny to a lovely Polish girl. She was a woman with much more freedom than her compatriots from the beginning of the last century. At the same time, she was aware that probably some of her struggles were still the same as theirs.

After two and a half years, Jasna and her Comorian partner decided to return to Slovenia. They were expecting a baby and both of them were aware that in the situation they were going through in Cairo, they couldn't continue staying in Egypt. After all, neither of them had a reliable income or a permanent job, and they were also aware that, as foreigners, they did not have a proper social network that would make everything at least a little easier for them.

After two and a half years, returning home for Jasna meant another dimension of migration, which taught her the importance of social networks and family ties. Early childhood acquaintances helped her start a new life in her hometown. With a distance to the whole experience, she began to appreciate all the differences between Slovenia and Egypt, which enriched her and broadened her horizons.

Jasna has not visited Egypt since, but she would like to go there one day again, to visit the city and the country with her children, to show them where their parents met.

DISCOVER MORE ABOUT THE MOVEMENT PROJECT

The content of this publication is the sole responsibility of Herstory and the APIS Institute and does not necessarily reflect the position of the Anna Lindh Foundation or the European Union. www.annalindhfoundation.org