‘The best thing about Swansea is that it’s a good community’
Children from asylum-seeking families and ethnic minorities have given their honest opinions of life in Swansea as part of a film project. Megan Griffiths reports...
CHILDREN from ethnic minorities and asylum-seeking families have been speaking about what they like and dislike about Swansea.
In frank interviews, they talk about issues such as racism and their hopes for a better life, and at the same time how much they love their schools.
All their views are included in a movie which will be shown at Swansea Film Festival. It is the product of a partnership between Swanseabased Locws International and the Ethnic Youth Support Team (Eyst).
Shahab Miah, a development youth worker at Eyst, said: “This project is all about giving a voice to young people – getting them to feel a part of the community, participate, gain extra skills and generally aspire to bigger and better things through opportunities.
“The young people did a fantastic job – they felt the need to let others know about who they are, how they feel about themselves and what they generally feel about living in Swansea.
“The young said they would feel more a part of the community if they did something for the community or if they could raise awareness of diversity.”
The group from Eyst decided to make the video on what they like and dislike about living in Swansea as part of the “Belonging Project”.
Locws, an artist-led charity, guided the children from Eyst over four days on how to make films on a subject of their choosing.
In the finished film the children state that they feel safe in Swansea.
One boy declares his love for his school saying: “It’s not too big, I won’t get lost.”
But the youngsters did not shy away from tough subjects and also discussed some of the negatives about Swansea, including homelessness, poverty, racism and of course, the weather.
Saif moved from Iraq to Swansea two years ago. He said: “Some people are racist and say something bad about your religion, asylum seekers or refugees. We moved to find a future. In our country there is no future.”
Gibril said: “We need to try to be helpful to other people. I do think Swansea is a diverse place. There’s lot of different people socialising with other people, it’s not just Welsh people, there’s English people, and Asian people.”
Over the course of the four days, not only did the children learn camera skills, but they also used their drawings and animated them using stop-motion to reiterate their stories and tales of Swansea.
A spokeswoman for Locws International said: “We decided to do this project to give people from minority backgrounds the platform for the voices to be heard. We want to give voices to these communities.”
Ahmed said: “Asylum seekers, refugees and students come to Swansea because they need our help and they can learn. When their country is safe they can go back and help the people who need help.”
Ali said: “The best thing about Swansea is it’s a good community, but the worst thing is, I think it should be greener, it’s all grey.”
He goes on to say: “I class myself as British because I was born here, but I know Arabic because my parents are from Iraq. I think we should interact more with each other, all mix up, like all different religions, cultures, where people come from. We should not judge each other by anything like religion or like that.”
The video finishes with some profound sentiments from the children, such as: “We believe we make a rich society, imagine if we were all the same, it would be a very boring place” and “Remember love not hate”.
Another said: “I am British, I am Welsh. I may have a different ethnicity. I may have a different religion, but it all adds value to who I am in society.”
Eyst members said: “It was a really fun project, we learned a lot and wanted other people to know about how we feel about our local community and understand us better.”
The Swancomm Film Festival is entirely organised and run by the participants, and is taking place on Saturday, July 15, at the National Waterfront Museum on Oystermouth Road from 1.30pm.