Navigating Forced Displacement as Digital Natives
Session Summary
The experience of displaced people has typically been defined by space and borders. However, in this age, more and more young people live in the shared space of the Internet, as digital natives. Many of these digital natives aspire to create a more just world through online movements. So, how do they juggle between propelling their digital movements and protecting themselves from backlash and surveillance? This interactive session will showcase digital movements and initiatives by displaced youths and their allies, and share ways for youths to drive digital movements and create social change.
This session is only accessible for registered participants to the session.
Additional information about the session
The session will be conducted live via Zoom meeting (link above).
For many of us, it can be hard to imagine what it’s like being displaced, and to envision how digital platforms can really impact our choices and opportunities. Aside from a short segment for speakers’ sharing, we have planned three interactive segments: simulation activity, breakout discussions and persona quiz.
Due to the interactive nature of our event, we are limiting participant numbers for a quality experience. Come early to be part of the session; be energized and ready for an immersive experience!
Host
Sarah Bagharib
Sarah believes that everyone has a story to tell and has made it her life’s mission to lend her voice so some of those stories can be heard. Her humanitarian efforts span across many different projects and the spirit of community-building is imbued in all that she does.
She is a former documentary producer-director and has worked on a wide range of programs, from hard-hitting current affairs for Al Jazeera to a series on contemporary artists for Bloomberg TV. She also once went undercover to film the appalling treatment of asylum seekers and refugees in detention centers across Indonesia. This curiosity to seek truths and highlight the realities of the voiceless/silenced has led her to her current role as a communications specialist at an international humanitarian aid organization.
Outside her day job, she’s a TEDx speaker and a TV presenter. She’s also a social advocate who pushes for all things that empower women and aims to highlight the importance of recognizing intersectionality in the cause. In December 2017, she founded Crazycat, a media and community platform that aims to help everyday women shine and help build their confidence through digital content, events and workshops. (194)
Speakers
Hasan Al-Akraa
Hasan is currently 21 years old and was born in Aleppo, Syria. In 2012, he arrived in Malaysia with his family due to the war in Syria. They went through difficulties and challenges as refugees, but they did not give up. Hasan worked in IIUM restaurants from 2012 until 2015. He was arrested by the immigration in 2014 and was put in a detention center for 9 days because refugees are not allowed to work legally in Malaysia.
At the detention center, Hasan met other younger refugee children. Listening to their stories and experiences made him realize how cruel the world could be to innocent children. When Hasan was released, he wanted to do something different for my community.
Since he could not help release them, he decided to be their voice and share their stories to the world so that hopefully policymakers and people in power can do something to release them. He started to advocate for their rights and encouraged them to not give up but to continue studying and learning because education is the weapon to change the world.
In 2016, Hasan started his own volunteering organization to reach out to more communities and to provide opportunities for more youth to volunteer and take actions. Al-Hasan Volunteer Network (AHVN) has organized over 200 charity events and reached out to 14 communities. The organization now has a network of over 500 volunteers both locals and international, and the work continues until this day.
Hasan is currently pursuing a bachelor’s degree in Education at the University of Nottingham Malaysia. He hopes to graduate in 2022 and return to Syria to work at the Ministry of Education to design an inclusive and quality curriculum for the Syrian people and rebuild Syria into a better society.
Mozhgan Moarefizadeh
Mozhgan is a human rights advocate, public speaker and legally trained refugee law paralegal, with a bachelor’s degree in English Teaching and Translation.
In 2013, Mozhgan moved to Indonesia with her parents and younger brother. Over the next few years, she became increasingly involved in supporting refugee communities, first as a trained interpreter by the American university of Cairo assisting the SUAKA Legal Aid Program of the Jakarta Legal Aid Institute, then as a paralegal assisting asylum seekers to draft applications for asylum and supporting the work of International Refugee Lawyers in Indonesia. She speaks 4 languages, English, Farsi, Dari and Bahasa Indonesia.
Mozhgan is the co-founder of the Refugees and Asylum Seekers Information Center, a member of the Jakarta Refugee Network, a founding member of the Jakarta Refugee Advocacy Network (JAPPSI), coordinates multiple programs in support of refugee communities including hygiene and food packages, eye and dental care clinics, connecting individuals with medical assistance and responding to legal aid inquiries. She writes for publications and speaks at events, seminars, conferences Internationally.
She is the co-host and reporter on “The Wait” podcast, produced by Nicole Curby, this 5-part documentary podcast brings you into the lives of refugees in Indonesia like never before. Check it out at www.thewaitpodcast.com or any other podcasting app.
Mozhgan is also a refugee recognized under the UNHCR’s 1951 Refugee Convention, a refugee stranded in a transit country without any rights. You have many options for keeping up with Mozhgan, if you can: YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, or Email.
Mohammed Faruque
Faruque was born in Myanmar on the 1st January 1988. His parents fled Myanmar along with 250,000 other Rohingya to Bangladesh in 1991 to escape persecution by the Burmese military. The family registered as refugees by UNHCR and the government of Bangladesh in 1992 and have been living in refugee camps ever since.
Refugees in Bangladesh do not have freedom of movement and access to formal education, so Faruque’s parents established private tuition classes in the shelters where they live to continue teaching. Faruque learnt his ABC’s in those private classes. He studied hard and became a voluntary teacher in an NGO-run primary school in 2005. Faruque then established a junior high school named Ashar Alo Secondary School in 2012 and continued his teaching profession until 2017.
In 2017, along with his younger brother Omar, Faruque started working as interpreters for various international media (BBC, ABC, VOA, SBS and Reuters) covering the humanitarian crisis of Rohingya. As they worked with photojournalists, Omar grew passionate about photography and his dream grew to become a journalist. He started documenting the lives of Rohingya in camps.
The brothers started working as volunteers in camps, Faruque as a team leader while Omar was a supervisor. Omar, along with two other colleagues, founded the Rohingya Film School in early 2020 to build awareness of COVID-19, making documentary videos on Rohingya cultures and history as well as interactive educational videos. Their aim was to increase health, hope, and heritage amongst the refugee communities.
On the 29th May 2020 Omar died of a heart attack, and the school was renamed as Omar’s Film School to acknowledge his contribution to the community. Faruque is currently working as a manager for Omar’s Film School and continuing his brother’s legacy.
Lin Yanqin
Yanqin is a Senior Producer at Our Better World, the digital storytelling initiative of Singapore International Foundation. She joined Our Better World in 2017 and leads the content for its series “Refugees: Displaced Not Discouraged”, which seeks to create narratives driven by refugee voices and highlight their courage and strength. Before joining Our Better World, Yanqin was a journalist at TODAY, an English-language daily newspaper in Singapore.