Be aware and share

Be aware and share is a Swiss relief organization founded in 2015 in the context of the European migrant crisis, and a documentary film released in 2016.

The relief organization
Be aware and share
Founded2015
FounderBastian Seelhofer
Typerelief
FocusWell being of refugees, especially children.
Location
Area served
2 countries (Greece and Switzerland)
MethodEmergency relief, community development and schools for refugee camps.
Key people
Mara Massari (Administration)
Cécile Speitel (Communication)
Employees
around 20 (2017)
Websitewww.baas-schweiz.ch

The charity work Be aware and share, portrayed in the film, was founded in Basel in 2015 by social worker Bastian Seelhofer and colleagues. The operational area of the relief agency is currently Switzerland and Greece.

When the refugee crisis intensified in the summer of 2015, Seelhofer's team decided to transport relief supplies to the Hungarian-Croatian border. In addition, there were deployments for stranded refugees on the Greek island of Chios, a few kilometers from the Turkish Aegean coast. There the team of Be aware and share settled down, Seelhofer resigned his position as a youth worker in Switzerland and devoted himself henceforth to the humanitarian project.[1]

In May 2016, Be aware and share founded a school in Chios. The NGO called for the UNESCO initiative Education Cannot Wait. Through donations collected in Switzerland and through voluntary work, she offers several dozen refugee children and young people a structured school day with at least two lessons per day. The teachers, mainly refugees themselves, teach languages (mainly English and native languages of the refugees, for example Arabic) and mathematics, among other things.[2] The charity works with other organizations and is financially supported by major relief organizations such as the Norwegian Refugee Council.[3]

The film

The Swiss-Iranian filmmaker Omid Taslimi, together with Lasse Linder, shot a documentary film about a journey that led Be aware and share to the Croatian-Hungarian border at Botovo (Drnje) in October 2015. The film shows how the project came about: the collection of clothes at the beginning, the surprise about the great interest in the Swiss population, the founding of the association, a charity concert with Collie Herb, La Nefera and other regional musicians. It is reported about the logistical problems and how the team travels by vans to Croatia; It is shown how the Swiss helpers finally find Croatian allies, and together with them, at the border station of Botovo, give refugees who get off the train and cross the border to Hungary, food and clothes.[4]

Apart from situation recordings, the film includes several short interviews with team members, other participants (for example, members of the Bernese aid organization Cibera) and ORF correspondent Christian Wehrschütz. In general, Taslimi focused the film strongly on the motivation of the activists.[5] The film was shown in various Swiss movie theaters.


References
  1. Michel Schultheiss: «Was sage ich einmal meinem Sohn, wenn er fragt, was ich damals gemacht habe?» In: TagesWoche, 6. August 2016.
  2. Robert Trafford: Inside the incredible school teaching refugee children on the Greek island of Chios. In: The Independent. 9 September 2016.
  3. Anna Jungen: Basler Flüchtlingsschule auf griechischer Insel Chios. In: Schweizer Radio und Fernsehen, Regionaljournal Basel, 7. Juli 2016.
  4. Lucas Huber: "«Be Aware and Share»: Berührende Doku über junge Basler Flüchtlingshelfer". Archived 2016-09-27 at the Wayback Machine In: TagesWoche, 8. Februar 2016
  5. Viviane Weber: "Nicht blockieren, sondern motivieren". In: Stadtanzeiger Olten, 17. August 2016.
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