Estonian Refugee Council and the University of Tartu Centre for Ethics collect migration stories

Estonian Refugee Council and the University of Tartu Centre for Ethics ask people with migration experience, both Estonians living abroad and foreigners staying in Estonia, to share their personal migration stories. The stories can be submitted until 17 April. Migration stories are collected in order to compile a migration-related poster collection for teachers.

“We want to create a new methodological tool for Estonian schools to support teachers in explaining the topic of migration to schoolchildren,” says the project leader and member of the board of Estonian Refugee Council Ingi Mihkelsoo. “On the one hand, the tool will reflect the reasons why people emigrate from their home countries, and on the other hand, how immigrants or their successors feel in the new society, and how they interpret their identity,” Mihkelsoo adds.

Interesting and fascinating stories of migrants’ lives might touch upon the following issues:
- important events that influenced them to leave their former homeland,
- how the new country was chosen or how they ended up there,
- how they feel as an immigrant in their new homeland – what is strange and different there, what they miss most when living abroad,
- what it feels to live in a country where your mother tongue/ cultural background/ religion/ skin colour is different,
- why they have decided to remain in their new homeland forever,
- or the other way round – why they regret their choice or at least consider returning to their homeland or moving to another country in future?  What interferes with making such a decision?

Up to 20-sentence stories in Estonian, English or Russian should be sent by 17 April to ingi@pagulasabi.ee.

Ten best migration stories will be selected from among the received ones and used as an inspiration for creating migration-related posters for teachers.

Read more on Eetikaveeb.

The project is managed by the Estonian Refugee Council and the University of Tartu Centre for Ethics in cooperation with the Ministry of Education and Research, and it is funded by the Council of the Gambling Tax.

Additional information: Ingi Mihkelsoo, project manager, member of the board of Estonian Refugee Council, 525 8702, ingi@pagulasabi.ee