The student-led NGOs taking on the refugee crisis

BERLIN — In 2015, as the greatest displacement crisis since World War II emerged, a million refugees and migrants arrived on Europe’s shores. Since then, with another 500,000 people arriving in 2016 and 2017, students have been setting up their own nonprofit organizations to help. Many have been moved to action by watching the situation unfold on television. “I remember the image of the boy on the beach,” said Lucy Shearer, who set up a branch of the charity Student Action for Refugees at her university in the United Kingdom. “When I saw that I thought, this is it, I can’t cope with not doing anything anymore.” While volunteering with an established nongovernmental organization is also an option, some feel they have more control over their impact if they create something new, spotting a gap in services or a new way in which to assist. “We are able to be flexible and react faster than a huge organisation,” said Florian Hollunder, from MigraMed, an organisation run by medical students in Munich, Germany, to help refugees access medical and psychological care. In doing so, they are creating change in their own communities. Francesco Faviere and Camilla Brancolini set up Koine, a nonprofit association that aims to help refugees integrate in Berlin. The pair, who recently graduated from Humboldt University, has just secured funding from the Heinrich Boll Foundation to help refugees find housing in the city. Faviere says he now feels like more of an active citizen. “There’s a connected feeling,” he said. Brancolini also feels a sense of achievement. “I don’t know what I ever created in my life before this, so it’s really fulfilling,” she said. But how did they go about it, and how can other students follow suit? Have a strong idea — and don’t let the paperwork put you off First of all, you need to figure out what charities are already doing and what you can bring to the table, said Brancolini, “otherwise it’s pointless.” Setting up on your own isn’t easy and there can be a lot of paperwork, she added. You have to be on top of the administration, and get a lawyer if necessary. The rules for founding an NGO differ by country. To register a charity and obtain charitable status in the UK, for example, you need to provide details like proof of income and information about your organization’s charitable purpose. In Germany, you can set up an association if you have enough founding members and are able to fill out all of the paperwork. Local organizations are the best resources on managing these regulations. Ghazzal Maydanchi, a student at Cambridge University in the UK, is launching RE:action, a network of student volunteers who are supporting refugees and migrants by pooling their skills to do things like remote translations and legal work. She says she wanted to have a purpose. “I thought, how can I put the skills and education I have to good use?” she said. Maydanchi said the key is to identify a clear problem to focus on: “You should have a really defined sense of what it’s going to look like. So we’ve been looking at it kind of like a startup, even though it’s humanitarian based.” Consider student timetables Shearer said she set up a branch of Student Action for Refugees, which runs fundraising activities and educates other students about migration, at the University of York after reaching a point where she could no longer watch the news without taking action. But if you’re working with students, you have to consider what they’ll be willing and able to do, Shearer advised. “We knew it was unlikely many students would take petitions and get people to sign them, but they will do things like turn up to film nights,” she said. Both she and Ghazzal advise launching a campaign in time for student orientation at the beginning of the year, when students are signing up to things. “We started in the middle of the year,” said Shearer, but after the student societies fair at the start of the following academic year “we had hundreds of signups.” Setting up on your own also means you can slow things down around exam time if you have to, said Maydanchi. Call on your networks Thais Roque founded the Oxford Students Refugee Campaign to fund scholarships for refugee and asylum-seeking students at Oxford University in the U.K. One of the good things about setting up your own campaign is that you can work within your community, which you already know, she told Devex. “You know what your university has, so it’s easier to get information and to get people on board, because you know the system. As a student, I could talk to administration people, professors, and students. I could reach a lot of people,” she said. Roque, from Brazil, said she really cares about scholarships because she was given one herself. “It’s my way of giving back to people who didn’t have the chances I had,” she said. “A lot of things were already being done, so I thought I have to start my own thing to contribute.” You may need to use your friends to build momentum in the beginning, said Shearer. “For the first few months just our friends came along,” she said. “We relied on them to show up and keep it going, before we built up our social media presence.” Leading a team isn’t easy though, the students say. People initially interested may drop out when the going gets tough, leaving you in the lurch, and you have to remember that they are giving their time voluntarily and be considerate of that. “If you go into a room and tell people what to do, it doesn’t go down so well,” Shearer said. Go for it — and build it to last The students say they wanted to make their associations and campaigns sustainable. As founder, Roque was able to create her own eligibility criteria for the scholarships, and she decided not to define a specific nationality. “We wanted it to be something that would be there for years to come, no matter where the next crisis hits,” she said. “So it became a fund for any student who cannot access education due to political or natural catastrophes.” You have to be patient and persistent, she said. “A lot of students come up with good ideas and then leave, because it’s time consuming.” The student founders’ main advice to others is: Just do it. Hollunder points out you shouldn’t be afraid of doing your own thing, and it doesn’t matter if it doesn’t take off. “If you fail it’s not a problem,” he said. “A failure is a success as well, because you can learn from it.” What’s most important is to keep going, as refugees are still in need of support, said Hollunder. “In 2015 it was easier because a lot of people wanted to help and were engaged in terms of refugee volunteering,” he said. “But for us, the hugest work is yet to come. So keep on being involved and being engaged and volunteer. That’s really important.” Read more Devex coverage on migration and displacement.