Follow-up event in Serbia
The conference „Muslim minorities and the refugee crisis in Europe” was held in Warsaw from 30.08.-03.09. 2018. and various follow-up activities took part afterwards. One of them, organized by Ivana Andjelkovic, who works as a Child Protection Officer in the Group for Children and Youth “Indigo”, was held at the Reception Centre for migrants in Vranje on 24th of January 2019. The topic of the workshop was based on one of the workshops held at the conference by Anetta Janowska, dedicated to the media representations of the refugees and the strategies to fight against harmful narratives.
The workshop was attended by young people from Afghanistan and Iran, accommodated in the Vranje Reception Centre. Majority of them have been staying in the camp for a few months, while some started attending secondary school in Serbia. The topic of the workshop was „Refugees in the Media“, and its aim was to show the participants the common narratives about refugees in contemporary media, to enable them to recognize false news and to give them the tools for reframing and changing the dominant media representation of the refugees. The Power Point presentation was prepared and the first part of the workshop was dedicated to explaining two most common roles attributed to the refugees – that of invaders or victims. Afterwards those narratives were challenged through discussion with the participants and they showed dissatisfaction with such treatment and the wish to change it and offer more layered view of their position. The second part of the workshop was dedicated to the phenomenon of fake news, where the participants gave different examples and discussed them further. The workshop facilitator highlighted the mechanisms which could help determine whether the news was true or false and shared them with the participants. The most common false news about refugees were also pointed out and their origin explained. The participants were satisfied with the workshop, even though they said that in the end they felt sadness, but also a desire to fight against biased view of them in the media.
