When the
Statelessness Programme in Tilburg University was created by Mrs. Van Waas, I
was a teenager dreaming of working in a university and becoming like Mrs. Van
Waas - make a change and help other people. I knew those were my dreams, but I
did not have any idea about how to make them a reality. In 2012, I took the
chance to study in Tilburg University, moved to the Netherlands and stared a
life changing journey.
Enrolled
in the Liberal Arts and Sciences Bachelor, I truly enjoyed my studies. Nevertheless,
I had great difficulties adapting in the new environment and learning to live
alone. I started searching for more opportunities than just attending lectures
and studying. I dreamed of a challenge and a real experience from the academic
area. Applying for an internship in the Statelessness Programme was just a
dream that seemed quite impossible before I realized that I was actually given
the opportunity for 6 months to work for the world’s most innovative and hardworking
programme about Statelessness.
I
joined the Statelessness team as an intern to help with awareness raising on
statelessness, by creating a web-site about Statelessness and Nationality. While still a student in high school I
was highly influenced by my brother, a computer engineer, and my mother, a
physics teacher; they made me passionate about studying and creating web-sites.
When applying for the Statelessness Programme I had basic knowledge on how to
manipulate ready web-site templates and adjust them to the content desired.
Nevertheless, I was lacking the essential knowledge of building my own web-site
from a scratch. Realizing how important the Statelessness programme is, I
decided that it would be highly inappropriate to use free online template and
therefore, I started taking online courses for programming. My internship was 6
months, 3 months of which I spent studying how to create the perfect web-site
for the needs of the Programme. In that sense, I am extremely grateful at Laura
van Waas and everyone in the team for giving complete freedom to decide on my
own and to create the web-site gradually. Working on Microsoft Web Expression
4, the web-site has a ‘bone’ structure of HTML, with some HTML5 elements, and a
‘skin’ structure of CSS and j-Query. I really wanted to create a PHP form for
comments, but for now my knowledge of PHP is insufficient to do that, although
I tried.
The
web-site presents two sides of the Statelessness problem – Statelessness and Nationality.
Before, my mind could not understand how it is possible one legal term to
envelop to such a degree a human creature and condemn it to belong nowhere. The
right side of the web-site is about Nationality and the left is about
Statelessness, and each of the two parts have their own drop-down menus. The
main purpose of this separation of those two terms is the clear distinction
between the legal terms and the social consequences of those terms. The web
site dedicates parts to all aspects of both Statelessness and Nationality that
affect all people in the world – those with and those without citizenship.
The
Statelessness section gives more information about what statelessness itself
is, how it occurs and why, as well as what can be done about statelessness and
what is done today by whom. In order for the Statelessness part to be fully
understood, the essence of Nationality has to be explained as well. Hence the
web-site is separated in two mutually complementing parts. In the Nationality part, you can find why we
have citizenship of different countries and how this affects our lives. People
can learn how due to the concept of Nationality and the legal gaps connected
with it, another legal term developed – Statelessness.
Creating
a duo-website about both Statelessness and Nationality was extremely helpful for
me as well. Working in such a great professional environment I started feeling at
home, surrounded by friends. The Statelessness Programme and everyone working
in it helped me grow as a person and to create something meaningful. I received
great help from Mrs. Van Waas and Miss Albarazi for the content of the
web-site. Back then, being a first year student, I realize now that I was not
able to explain the essence of the Statelessness issue without the great
guidance of the before mentioned people. Most of all, I am endlessly grateful
for being found, when I was lost. That is what the Statelessness Programme in
Tilburg University is doing – it is helping people all over the world to find
their place, where they belong.
Zhasmina
Kostadinova, former intern with the Statelessness Programme and designer of the
website www.whatisstatelessness.org
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