Last Saturday, the cooperation between terre des hommes schweiz and the MNA Centre Lilienberg reached a preliminary climax: At a peaceful and beautiful autumn festival, the young asylum seekers presented their home countries to the visitors.
The open day of the MNA Center Lilienberg last Saturday was under a good omen: After the morning fog had cleared, the autumn sun shone from a cloudless sky on the mini village with country huts, information stands and festive catering in the garden of the centre. From 12 to 17, a light but steady stream of visitors found their way to the Lilienberg, where 64 young unaccompanied asylum seekers aged 11 to 17 from 25 different countries live.
Exciting experience
terre des hommes schweiz invited the visitors to a classroom of the centre for morphing and met with great interest. Anyone who wanted to could have their face merged with the face of a person from our project countries. At times the crowd was so large that the terre des hommes schweiz team could hardly keep up with the photography.
Informative journey
In the garden, four country huts led the visitors on an exciting and informative journey to the home countries of the young people who had designed the huts themselves. The travellers expected a variety of experiences: In their best German or English, the young people told about their homeland and customs and answered the many questions of the visitors.
Insight into home life
But also the young people, who did not present themselves with a country hut, made an important contribution to the success of the autumn festival. For example, a group prepared tasty curry dishes for sale in the kitchen. Others guided visitors through the house at every hour, showing them where and how they live. The rooms are sparse, only just furnished with the most important things. Those who thought that the young people here lived in luxury were impressively taught a lesson.
Opens new perspectives
The cooperation with the MNA Centre Lilienberg was an exciting and important experience for terre des hommes schweiz and the young people of imagine - the festival against racism," Stefan Studer, Co-Managing Director of terre des hommes schweiz, noted in the afternoon. "As development policy organisations, we are working to expose migration myths, to introduce new perspectives and the situation in the southern countries into the sometimes unspeakable migration debate. The joint project with the unaccompanied young people from Lilienberg was not only a new challenge, but also opened up new perspectives for all those involved.
