The young refugees sharing a new language

Has there ever been a time when you were alone in a new place, surrounded by people you don’t know? Perhaps the local language was not familiar to you? And you were feeling a bit anxious because you didn’t quite know where you were going or how to ask? Did you feel a tiny bit vulnerable, even as a grown adult? Now imagine you were in the same position, but a child. Not only a child, but perhaps without any parents or carers to help you.

This is a frightening reality for so many young refugees every year, who are seeking safety and a better life. They travel many miles to find it, from a number of countries, often ending up in places where they are unable to communicate their needs and simply have to trust that help will come. Thankfully, when they arrive in Ghent, Belgium, there are plenty of organisations and support networks in place to help them to settle into their new surroundings.

“Some of these children have sometimes travelled for weeks or months in terrible conditions,” explains Filip Vandenbempt, our Senior Manager for Corporate Communications and Marketing Services in Benelux. “And this is why Lieve Blanquaert, our Canon Ambassador came to us with an OKAN school co-ordinator to see if we could help them to process what they have been through and connect with their new home using visual storytelling.”

OKAN (Onthaalklas voor Anderstalige Nieuwkomers) is a Dutch language learning programme, specifically tailored to the experiences of pre-teen and teenaged newcomers and delivered through Stedelijk onderwijs Ghent (Urban Education Ghent), a network of local schools.

The goal of OKAN is to sensitively introduce these young people to their new language, understanding and accounting for the often-traumatic circumstances in which they came to be in Ghent in the first place. However, when the students first enter the classroom, they often do not even have a shared language to communicate with, which is why introducing imaging into their lessons made a lot of sense.

Lieve’s idea was, firstly, to use familiar images as reference materials, to help these young people learn Dutch. But secondly – and perhaps more importantly – to enable them to talk about their lives when they don’t currently have the words to do so. In short, using a camera to share their own stories and what is meaningful to them – which is precisely what our established Young People Programmes are designed to do.

However, when we enter a classroom to prepare and hold our workshops, we usually know that some core aspects will fundamentally be the same and these are the bedrock of the programme, wherever it is held. We show our students how to use Canon technology, including our cameras, and help them to explore the theory of storytelling. Then we ask them to apply what they have learnt in order to explore a theme that has real meaning to them.

But at OKAN, our usual approach needed some tweaking, to account for a lack of common language between the tutors and students – and among the students themselves. Plus, many OKAN students have never been through any kind of formal schooling before, so reading and writing skills are also variable. “Here, photography is used to learn the basics of the language,” says Filip. “But also, to help the young people communicate with each other and be a language they can share, right now.”

At high school age, as these students are, this is the time where they begin to build their confidence and a gain a sense of responsibility and agency. But, for the many refugees who find themselves at OKAN, so much is or has been out of their control, so any sense of empowerment in their own lives has been hard to come by. Indeed, one of the most moving moments of this Young People Programme came when the students borrowed cameras, so they could capture their own stories outside of the classroom. “We asked them to sign out the cameras before they could take them home,” recalls their teacher. “And they were so surprised because they thought they were for the classroom only. For many of them, it was the first time they had been asked to sign an ‘official’ document themselves. Or to take responsibility for something so valuable. It was so important for their self-confidence.”

The Canon Belgium team and Lieve returned to OKAN on several occasions, armed with cameras and printers, so that the students could have physical copies of their images. And as their knowledge and language improved, they were able to ask more technical questions and subsequently became more capable photographers. Their confidence grew to the point that they independently organised their very own photography exhibition at the school premises, inviting all their supporters and friends, as well as several dignitaries, including the Mayor of Ghent, Mathias De Clercq, who happily posed for selfies with the students. Everything from the guest list to the decorations and even the welcome drinks were planned by the students themselves.

Learning these new languages brought them a sense of self-belief, which creates a sense of possibility. Each image shared during their time with the Young People Programme helped everyone at OKAN – and beyond – to better understand each other and provide important context for their teachers (“I’ve never known my students this well because photography was a vehicle to learn to talk Dutch and tell their stories.”. This, in turn, helped with their education while also telling stories that opened many eyes, hearts and minds. The students of OKAN used their cameras as tools to create confidence, connection and community – a solid foundation for the next stage of their journey: adulthood.