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to the humanitales

by.milene

I’ve been a bit quiet lately. Not because of a l

I’ve been a bit quiet lately. Not because of a lack of words, nor actions.

I managed to help get three families from Mytilini to Athens (also thanks to your donations 😘😘) I’m taking care of them, this means; sending money so they can rent a home and pay for groceries and hospital visits. It also means talking to them on an almost daily basis.

Three families of thousands. It’s nothing right? No it’s not. And I wished I could help many more families. But, I’m just a simple person.

With every message that I share online I receive at least 50 back. Half of those are from people asking my help. They are desperate and tell me their stories. Send me photos of where they are, of their physical problems, of their traumas.

Totally understandable of course. But, I’m just a simple person.

It’s hard to see the hardship of people, it’s painful to listen to their suffering, it’s impossible to not care.

And yeah, what am I talking about right? I didn’t have to go through all that suffering, I didn’t have to flee and I don’t have to deal with European politics everyday. True! But, receiving shouts of help every day, reading horrible stories every day, seeing photos of torture, if it didn’t bother me I wouldn’t be human.

That’s why I’ve been a bit quiet lately. It’s been a bit tough and maybe a little too much. But, never stopping, behind Instagram a lot is happening 👍🏼 😘😘

* Want to help? Via link in bio you can donate to my PayPal. 100% goes to the people who shout for help!

Europeans like to pretend that they live in innoce

Europeans like to pretend that they live in innocence in a fragile fortress and have to defend themselves constantly against hordes of greedy fake refugees who try to cut a hole in the walls. That's a bit too easy.

European countries play a role in the wars and poverty from which people are fleeing. And what about the environmental pollution caused by 'our' companies?

When the Cold War ended there were thirty-six armed conflicts going on. In almost all of them, Europe and the US were important players. They either fought themselves, supported or financed the wars politically, sold weapons to warring factions, helped keep dictators in power, and/or were complicit in policies that kept people poor and violated their rights.

Now in Syria, Somalia and Afghanistan, countries from which most people flee, Europe and the US join the fight and supply weapons. Or withdraw after having done so much damage.

And yet political leaders present the refugees emerging from the rubble as an isolated problem, never as a consequence of their own foreign policy.

European governments do not point to the brutal wars and their own role in them as the cause of the high numbers of asylum seekers, but to good refugee reception. They still reason (as in 1951) that everyone wants to come to Europe if you are too nice to the refugee. People who flee should still feel as unwelcome as possible in Europe. That’s the European policy.

It’s time to deal with the problems ‘we’ cause(d)! How? Drop your ideas in the comments, inspire each other ♥️

Inspired by Linda Polman #refugees #photographer #refugeestories #refugeesupport #europe #usa #migration #vluchtelingen #safethechildren #refugeeswelcome #whypeoplematter #becausepeoplematter #nobodywantsthem #keinerwillsiehaben #sharingiscaring

Ever heard about the #Hemshin people? They live in

Ever heard about the #Hemshin people? They live in Northern #Turkey but are descending from #Armenia.

To survive, these Armenians gave up their religion. They converted to Islam. They also started to speak the local language; Turkish. Some of the Hemshin people still speak the ancient #Anatolian (western) Armenian dialect. But only very few.

The Hemshin are without doubt one of the most enigmatic peoples of Turkey and the #Caucasus. As former #Christians who converted to #Islam centuries ago yet did not assimilate into the culture of the surrounding #Muslim populations, as Turks who speak Armenian yet are often not aware of it, as Muslims who continue to celebrate feasts that are part of the calendar of the Armenian #Church, and as descendants of Armenians who, for the most part, have chosen to deny their Armenian origins in favour of recently invented #myths of Turkic ancestry, the Hemshin and the seemingly irreconcilable differences within their group identity have generated curiosity and often controversy.

While #travelling to #China I am searching for stories of #migration cause it is not something that happens only now. Since the existence of #humanity #people migrated. Sometimes because of famine, drought, war. But also because it’s a very #human thing to do.

Is there anything you’d like to know about the Hemshin people? Or maybe my journey East? Let me know in the comments!

Welcome to Turkey! This photo is taken at the Turk

Welcome to Turkey! This photo is taken at the Turkish/Syrian border.

In Europe we are too building fences like these and walls like the Mexican / USA wall.

Why? Because people fleeing from famine, drought, war are trying to find safety here and we don’t want that...

So today, on #worldrefugeeday there is nothing to be celebrating, nothing to be happy about.

As long as we built walls and fences instead of bridges and relationships we have lost.

As long as we close doors and borders instead of opening them we are far from freedom and equality.

As long as we keep dictators where they are and stop people from running away from their oppressive regime we are far from peace.

There shouldn’t be a World Refugee Day, every day should be the day that we fight borders like these, that we strive for freedom and equality for all and work towards peace. Every single day.

Let’s start today shall we? 💪🏽

Today is Juneteenth. It’s the day the last ensla

Today is Juneteenth. It’s the day the last enslaved people of the USA were freed. But to be honest it’s not yet a day to celebrate cause still many people in the world are enslaved.

Girls being promised a good job in the city but end up in brothels where the money earned goes to the pimp. Migrant women offered good jobs in foreign countries but ending up working 20 hours a day not receiving any of the promised money. People working for many hours a day, even sleeping there, in clothing factories for salaries from which they can hardly buy themselves food.

Modern slavery is all around us, but often just out of sight. People can become entrapped making our clothes, serving our food, picking our crops, working in factories, or working in houses as cooks, cleaners or nannies.

This is the reason why I stopped buying products like Nutella or clothes from H&M. That’s why I buy Fairtrade coffee, slave free chocolate and preferably local products.

Yeah this boy on the photo is not enslaved. He is a young boy tending the sheep and goats of his family while he actually should be in school. Many of these kids in South Turkey either take care of their families animals or migrate to the Black Sea region to pick hazelnuts on a farm. They work 13 to 14 hours a day on slopes so steep that it's easy to lose your footing. These hazelnuts are used by Nutella 😠

Let’s make today and all the days after today a day on which we all check what products we buy, if there were enslaved people involved and STOP buying them! It’s not that hard. Let’s free enslaved people everywhere on earth, let’s fight for their freedom and let’s educate each other on this subject.

As long as there are enslaved people, we are all enslaved.

#freedom #calloutforfreedom #freepeople #enslaved #childlabour #slave #juneteenth

Last year five surfers found their death in the wa

Last year five surfers found their death in the waves that crash the beach of my city every day. One of them wasn’t found. He was drifting somewhere and I remember the horror filling my body. I remember feeling the pain that a lost soul was still drifting in that dangerous and harsh sea. That parents couldn’t burry their son. That his friends couldn’t say goodbye. That he was there, somewhere in that big sea that seemed endless. But the coastguard never stopped searching, neither did the community and the newspapers were all over it. Everyone was looking out for him. When he was found I felt relieve. He came back home to be buried and said goodbye to in a proper manner.

Last week the body of a young child was found. Not where he drowned, near the English coast, but many kilometers away. He was found in Norway, many months later. No community, not even the coastguard looked for him very long. I didn’t read much about it in the newspaper and as months passed by so did the news move on. Again I felt the horror inside my body. That little boy. So tiny, so young. He didn’t go surfing with his friends. He took a dangerous route with his parents to find safety. Instead he found death.

Both these boys had a whole life in front of them. Both died way too young. However, this small child died at the hands of Europe, not at the hands of the sea. It’s both so tragic, but at least one innocent soul could’ve been spared.

It breaks my heart thinking about his parents who didn’t know where there son was, who couldn’t say goodbye, who probably feel so much guilt.

Six years ago an image of a young boy drowned and washed ashore shock the world. Six years later another boy finds the same death. Nothing changed. We are shocked, and move on with our lives.

Is this the way we want the future to look back at us? Is this the way we want to be remembered? From news items where little boys wash ashore and the world is shockingly watching and then moving on... turning the page of their newspapers.

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#migrants #migration #refugees #drowning

I feel I’m in two different worlds, I live two d

I feel I’m in two different worlds, I live two different lives.

One is the privileged Dutch life. The life in which I have it all, take what I can and explore the boundaries of this privilege. The other life is the one in which I talk with people on the run, where I collect money so I can help them and take photos to tell their stories. These two lives are so different from one another that I sometimes feel like an actress, an artist maybe juggling two lives. How can I enjoy my travels eastwards in a van when on the other hand I’m talking with people who are blocked at borders and violently pushed back? How can I listen to the stories of refugees and be emotional when the next minute I’m having a beer watching the sunset over a lake.

I’m as free as I can be, still I feel trapped within these lives. I want to let go of one of them but both are dear to me. Can these life’s coexist? Can one be free and caged at the same time? Is it alright to live the perfect life while others cannot? Can you fight for others’ freedom while you roam the world freely at the same time?

While I sip my coffee and watch the sun shining at the salt lake in Turkey with my other hand I’m texting people stuck in camps in the same country. The freedom I enjoy right now is taken away from people living not far from me. I can come, share in their fear and hopeless times but then I’m on the road again. Using the freedom that is given to me because of the place I was born.

Should I, if I really care, give away my freedom and use all the time, energy and passion I have to fight for the freedom of others? Giving up on my privileges and instead cross the dangerous borders together with those who aren’t privileged? To show that we are still not treated equally in 2021.

Am I humanitarian enough to give up my own freedom and privilege for another?

I’m in limbo, living two lives at the moment. I’ll be honest, I don’t think I’m ready to give up my privilege. But I also won’t give up fighting for equality so everyone can enjoy the same privilege as me.

#fromtheheart

“Since I arrived here I’m in pain. My belly sc

“Since I arrived here I’m in pain. My belly screams for food, my mind for rest and my heart for love.”

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#refugees #refugeeswelcome #refugee #humanrights #migrants #immigration #withrefugees #migration #refugeestories #asylumseekers #humanity #love #immigrants #charity #humanitarian #refugeecrisis #peace #education #unhcr #refugeecamp #help #refugeechildren #photography #refugiados #greece #europe #migrant #everydayrefugees #humanitarianaid #freedom

“Chinese people can migrate, Chinatown can be fo

“Chinese people can migrate, Chinatown can be found in every big city. Little Italy as well. You have no problem with people from the USA or Germany migrating and you yourself has migrated. But when it comes to people fleeing from war, persecution and dictatorship it’s not allowed to migrate. Europe’s double standards.”

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#migrating #migrantswelcome #chinashop #chinatown #littleitaly #migration #migrants #migrant #refugee #refugees #refugeestories #refugeequotes #letthemtelltheirstory #shop #vluchtelingen #migranten #refugeeswelcome #humanrights

“You only get into the back of a dark truck wher

“You only get into the back of a dark truck where you almost suffocate because there is no air for four hours with your children because your home is not safe, because there is no home anymore. You will not take this dangerous route with your kids if there is another way.”

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#voicesofrefugees #refugees #refugeestories #leavenoonebehind #love #family #quotes #photography #humanrights #humanitarianphotographer #photographs #humanitarian

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