Raising Awareness on Statelessness: Schools Project

My name is Christina van Kuijck, I’m currently studying 3 masters (Human Rights Law, Criminal Law and War Studies) and started my internship at the Statelessness Programme in September 2013. The reason why I applied for it was because I previously follow the course “Nationality, Statelessness and Human Rights”. It had such a big impact on me, that I wanted to contribute to the world in this area.

I’m an intern now for 6 weeks and each week I’m more positive I made the right choice. Besides preparing the Global Forum on Statelessness, which will be held in September 2014 in the Hague, my tasks include raising awareness on statelessness. One of the projects I’ve been busy with is the School Project for primary and secondary schools. After preparing the materials on nationality and the link with statelessness, we had the opportunity to give a lecture on the 4^th of October at the “Onze Lieve Vrouwe Lyceum” in Breda (the Netherlands) to children of the third grade (3 VWO, 14 year-olds). A researcher and another intern from the Statelessness Programme – Zahra and Sangita – accompanied me.

When I arrived there, I was very nervous. I have previously given private lessons to people between the age of 10 – 21, but never to an entire class of 30 persons. I was also a little bit afraid that the children would have difficulty following a whole class in English. I didn’t need to be afraid or nervous at all. The students were really enthusiastic and active in the lecture. When they absolutely didn’t know how to explain themselves in English, they would use Dutch.

We started the lecture by asking the students what nationality is. Though none of the students had another nationality than the Dutch one, some of them had relatives that do have another nationality. We explained them that nationality entails both identity and membership. By asking the students different questions with the nationalities they mentioned (for example Germany and Italy) they were able to understand what identity means. It was interesting to see what national stereotypes came out - one of the students stated, for instance,  that "Italian women are very bossy". Afterwards the students gave some examples of forms of membership – one of them raised the school as a kind of "club" that they are members of, showing that they were one step ahead of us since we wanted to ask them what their do's and don'ts  (rights and duties) were as members of the class and the school. The next question was: what if you have no nationality and what is the problem? The students immediately answered: you don't have any rights and any duties. This paved the way to move on to the next question: the explanation of statelessness.

Zahra took over from here: She showed a video of stateless persons and the students were very interested in what they saw. Zahra asked the students whether they knew how they acquired nationality, and all of them gave the correct answers: the land bond through birth or naturalisation, and the blood bond through relatives or marriage. I was also impressed at how the students intuitively suggested that a foundling should acquire nationality by one way or the other, for example by giving a foundling the nationality where he was born, or found, or the nationality of his (adoptive) parents. After explaining naturalisation, most of the students stated that they would want another nationality because it would be easier for them in the future to find jobs (and because according to them, the Netherlands is too cold and small for them). Zahra then arrived at the loss of nationality, by offeringdifferent real -life examples.

Sangita took over to explain the regulation of nationality in the Netherlands and talked about an article in the newspaper of a stateless person in their own country. The students were quite shocked that this also happens in their own country. Finally, Zahra showed the international regulations and explained two cases of statelessness – the Rohingya in Myanmar and Bidoon in Kuwait.  

The students showed a lot of concern towards the problem and understood everything correctly. The teacher, Jos van Schilt, was very enthusiastic and gave us some positive feedback and has offered to help with the materials and different exercises for the School Project.

It was a very positive experience for me, soon we will be able to teach upper secondary classes and compare the materials that we have used and the way students respond to the topic. Currently I’m working with Jos van Schilt on a paper about nationality and statelessness education as one of the responses to statelessness. I hope to raise awareness all over the world with the School Project, and finish the materials before the end of the year in three languages (English, Spanish and Dutch). I’m very happy with this internship, as it gives me an opportunity to explore the law in a different way, not only by receiving education, but also by giving it to others.

Christina van Kuijck – intern at the Statelessness Programme

Introducing … Zhasmina Kostadinova, intern working on statelessness awareness raising

Zhasmina joined the Statelessness Programme in February 2013,as an intern for a 6-month project to develop new outreach tools on statelessness. In the interview below, she introduces herself and talks about what she has been learning and what she hopes to achieve thorough the internship.

Please start by telling us a bit about yourself.

My name is Zhasmina Kostadinova, I am from Bulgaria. I am a first-year student of Liberal Arts and Sciences in Tilburg University.

What made you interested in an internship at the Statelessness Programme?

My studies are organized in such a way that at the end of the first year I have to choose a major, i.e. in which field I will continue my work. I was searching for an activity with which I will guide my mind and make this decision. At that moment, I saw the free intern positions at the Statelessness Programme. I started reading about the issue, and as I found it to be the perfect combination of Law and Social Sciences, I applied for the programme.

In this way, in February 2013 I joined the Statelessness Programme as an intern to help with raising awareness on Statelessness. My internship project is 6 months long and until now I feel extremely thankful, for the opportunity to contribute to the Programme and to realize my dreams and plans.  One of the greatest benefits of working with the Statelessness Programme is doing real tasks, while participating in a professional international team. I am having the enormous pleasure to learn constantly by interaction.

As you are starting to learn more about statelessness, what do you find most interesting and why?

With my first day in the Statelessness Programme I was surprised to realize in what great detail Nationality is needed for every person. While preparing for my first steps with the team I was searching for information about Statelessness and Nationality, on the internet, which will broaden my knowledge of this topic. Unfortunately, I could not find one single web-site that could combine the issues of Nationality and Statelessness at one place, together with examples and theory.

Very important for the development of my understanding and knowledge of the topic of statelessness, were a lecture about Statelessness by Jason Tucker and conversations with Laura van Waas. During the lecture, Mr. Tucker drawn a simple circle with the typical rights and duties that we have together with our nationality, and then he started to cross out all the things that a statelessness person doesn’t possess. This, so simple picture, touched me at that very moment. I had thought that the information on the Internet was enough and provides basic knowledge, but I could not find such a strong and at the same time simple explanation of how statelessness affects people.

Moreover, during my training by Mrs. Van Waas, I learned about the nationality laws of different countries and how the way in which states regulate nationality can lead to statelessness. In the beginning I was deeply indignant of the discrimination of some Muslim countries, where a woman married to a foreign man, cannot pass her nationality to her children.

Can you tell us a bit about what you are working on as your internship project?

As an intern at the Statelessness Programme, I am creating a “duo” website about Nationality and Statelessness. I am working with Web-expression 4 and HTML 5 for the creation of a simple, but interactive and creative website. The aim is to make the awareness of the statelessness issue more accessible to people of all ages and especially, to catch the attention to the young people. 

Young people, who are still studying in schools, are a very important target because children learn quickly and make the change they want to see in other people. We believe that with more people informed about the problems faced by stateless people, this can make a difference over time.

Awareness leads people not only to sympathize the Stateless people, but to realize how much we have taken for granted the nationality that we have. People do not think about their nationality or when they need it for something and it is difficult to realize how important it is, actually. With simple examples, videos and an interactive design the website will combine the issues of Statelessness and Nationality with the idea of a better society, through better awareness.

What are your impressions of the Statelessness Programme so far and what do you hope to learn during the rest of your internship?

Until now I think that this internship is the most interesting challenge I have ever faced. I feel really happy and thankful to the whole team, which is very supportive, has a broad knowledge of the topic and is very creative. I hope the website will arise more awareness on statelessness and will change the attitudes of more people, which may help for the improving of the laws and better addressing the statelessness issue.

Zhasmina Kostadinova, Statelessness Programme intern