This is a brief summary of the main activities that the Escarré International Centre for Ethnic Minorities and Nations (CIEMEN) is engaged in, or has been, for the 2021-2022 period.
Completing two projects with Kurdish associations in Amed
CIEMEN is culminating in 2022 the work it has been doing since late 2020 in two 18-month long projects aimed at lending support to Syrian refugees (women, youths, and children) in the capital city of North Kurdistan (Turkey), Amed (Diyarbakir in Turkish) with local partners OSAD and Göç-Der associations. In the first project, TitulArts, some 100 women and 120 children (Kurdish and Arab refugees from Syria) have been trained. The children have received training in theatre, dance, music, and visual arts to improve their autonomy, trust, dialogue, cooperation, and self-esteem, while the women have engaged in a process to become community agents allowing them to exercise their sexual and reproductive rights, and help other women to do so. A film has been shot to document their refuge process. The second project, Rights and Cameras, has trained some 30 young Kurdish refugees from Rojava (Syria) in cinema techniques, as a preparation to shoot three short movies on their refuge experience. The films hailing from both projects have been screened both in Amed and in Catalonia in several cinema festivals in autumn and winter 2021. The two projects received funds from the Catalan Government’s Cooperation Agency (ACCD) and the Barcelona Metropolitan Government (AMB).
Research and reports on minority-related issues
In late 2021 and early 2022 CIEMEN completed five researches and reports on several minority-related issues. Featured among them are a fieldwork research on the perceptions that members and activists of Morocco’s Rif diaspora in Catalonia hold about the Rif conflict. The research has been held by CIEMEN’s David Forniès and the dossier was released in November 2021; it can be downloaded from Nationalia.cat. Also, a report on African secessionist movements and human rights violations, coordinated by David Forniès and commissioned to CIEMEN by the Greens-EFA Group in the European Parliament, was unveiled in Barcelona in February 2022. It can be downloaded from MEP Jordi Solé’s website. Another research on Amazigh women, by Günes Öztürk and Istar Montull, is about to be released.
Training in rights of peoples and feminism
From October to December 2021 CIEMEN held its annual School (6th edition) online and its Seminar (5th edition) at the University of Lleida (Catalonia). Both are specialised courses linking the collective rights of peoples, self-determination, and diversity, with a cross-cutting, gender perspective. For the last six editions, the School has had guest pupils from social organizations and youth branches of political parties from Catalonia, Valencian Country, Mallorca, Galicia, Basque Country, Asturias, Andalusia, Canary Islands, Sicily, Occitania, Montenegro, Serbia, Finland, Morocco, Israel, Colombia, and the Dominican Republic, becoming a truly international event. New editions of both events are scheduled for November-December 2022. CIEMEN is currently drafting the programs.
Nationalia’s in depth stories
CIEMEN’s online news site continues to release in-depth stories, brief news, op-eds, and interviews. Featured stories in 2022 include the war in Ukraine, the plight of Tamils in Sri Lanka, protests in Corsica after the killing of Yvan Colonna, the Nagorno-Karabakh war, and the struggles of Indigenous peoples in Brazil and Chile.
Support to the Amazigh language and culture in Catalonia
CIEMEN has been working for 7 years with the Amazigh House of Catalonia (CAC) association in a series of actions to support the maintenance and development of the Amazigh language in our country. Amazigh is an indigenous, minoritised language of North Africa, currently spoken by some 125,000 people in Catalonia. The Parliament of Catalonia committed itself in 2002 to support the language by recognising the Amazigh as one of the components of the Catalan society; our project follows such policy framework. Within it, we have completed in 2022 all 24 units of the teaching materials for Amazigh language classes in Catalonia (“tc wawjdm” method; it can be downloaded from CIEMEN’s website). In November 2021 CIEMEN, CAC and Biblioteques de Barcelona organised a series of conferences, workshops and concerts on the Amazigh language and culture which was attended by more than 100 people altogether.
International Forum on Multilevel Governance
Through a joint initiative, CIEMEN, Coppieters Foundation, and Fórum Soberanista –an organisation made up of some 20 pro-sovereignty organisations at the political, trade union, and cultural levels of the Spanish state– held an international training seminar on different topics considering their relation with the European environment in a broad sense. The aim was to provide academic and formative resources to the attendees to promote debate, the exchange of ideas, and to generate shared knowledge around topics such as feminism, the management of linguistic diversity and of territorial conflicts, trade unionism, and the rise of the extreme right in a European and global framework. The seminar, the International Forum on Multilevel Governance, was held in Gandia (Valencian Country) on 10-11 December 2021.
Other activities have also taken place in 2022 —please visit Catalan language pages at ciemen.cat to learn more!