As part of the GRITIM-UPF support and the funding from UPF Solidària, Zenia Hellgren invited Fundació Comtal to give a class together with young migrants

Fundació Comtal explains what the young migrants in their program are most concerned about.

The team from Fundació Comtal’s program “Construeix-te” (“Construct yourself”) gave a dynamic session during the undergraduate course “Immigració i mercat de treball” (“Immigration and the labour market”), which Zenia Hellgren teaches since 2018.  After their presentation the students played a game to raise awareness of how much a person’s legal status matters for his or her opportunities, where some were assigned the role of citizens, others with temporary residence permits and some, undocumented or stateless. Then, Mohammed from Algeria and Samir from Morocco read personal letters about their migrant trajectories and their struggle to find a future in Spain and help their families back home.

“How can we help you feel integrated?” one student asked at the end, and the response was clear:

“Please don’t be afraid of us. There are many good people here but also much racism, people grab their bags when they see me and that hurts”, said Samir, a 17 years old former student of Spanish literature in Tangiers, who wants to become a teacher one day.  

Zenia Hellgren considers that building this kind of link between the university and civil society is essential and much valued by the students:

“I notice that the students become particularly attentive when they listen to personal narratives as those of Mohammed and Samir. This gives a human face to what I explain in the theoretical classes and that facilitates the students’ understanding of what phenomena such as migratory movements or integration are really about.” She has also invited an activist from the female migrant domestic workers’ labour union Sindillar to one of the classes of this year’s course and organized a guided visit to the Non-Discrimination Office in Barcelona at the Master in migration studies course Diversity, Discrimination and Citizenship.

Ramona from Sindillar talks about alternative trade unions and the situation of migrant domestic workers.