The Regional Workshop on Awareness-Raising On Refugees and Promoting Their Integration Among General Public In Belarus, Moldova and Ukraine took place on November 27—28, 2013 in Kishinev. The event was organized by the UNHCR Regional Representation for Belarus, Moldova and Ukraine in the framework of the EU—UNHCR Project «Local Integration of Refugees in Belarus, Moldova and Ukraine (phase II)».
Officials of the governmental bodies of Belarus, Moldova and Ukraine, as well as representatives of non-governmental organizations took part in the seminar. Natallia Sakalouskaya and Natallia Barysavets, representatives of the Department on Citizenship and Migration of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Belarus, Viktar Novikau, Deputy Head of the Department of Information and Public Relations of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Belarus, Alena Markevich, Editor of the Department of Social Issues of the “Teacher newspaper” of the Ministry of Education of Belarus, as well as Volha Valazhynskaya, Integration Advisor of the Belarusian Red Cross Society, and Liubou Kravets, Public Information Assistant of the INA “Evolutio” were among the participants from Belarus.
Ms. Melita Sunjic, Senior Regional External Relations Officer of the UNHCR Bureau for Europe, in her speech covered the issues of conducting successful information campaigns aimed to raise awareness on refugees and form tolerance behavior in society towards this category of population. She told about four phases in building of successful campaigns, which are the following: target group identification; analysis of sociological basis in order to understand the nature of prejudice for each group and values of each society; revealing communications channels and methods of information dissemination; development of the campaign content appealing to the senses of the target audience. Melita Sunjic also demonstrated posters and brief videos as examples of successful information campaigns being implemented in Belgium.
The participants of the event were also familiarized with Polish experience in holding of such campaigns, which was presented by Mr. Rafal Kostrzynski, Communications and Public Information Associate of the UNHCR Representation in Poland. Giving an example of incidents with attacks on foreigners in Bialystok when the municipality and the police didn’t react on time, the UNHCR Representation in Poland launched an information campaign in mass media, which resulted in responses and reaction from the law enforcement.
Mr. Maksym Butkevych, Media Trainer of the NGO “Social Action” (No Borders”), presented information dealing with situations with the mass media coverage of the issues relating to migration and asylum and ways to improve them. He touched upon complicated issues which might occur while preparing the materials, told when and why they occur. Maksym Butkevych presented the term “hate speech” and focused on why it is important for journalists to consider key terms and sensitive issues while drafting a story. He also demonstrated unsuccessful examples of news articles in Ukrainian mass media, having explained mistakes and “pitfalls”.
The documentary “Aliens: Somalis in Transit” by Spanish filmmaker Paula Palacious was demonstrated to the participants in course of the workshop. The film provoked intense discussion among everyone.
Following the brainstorming and planning sessions, recommendations for governmental bodies and NGOs on ways to improve local integration activities and develop public information campaigns were proposed by the participants. In particular, project proposals for the Republic of Belarus sounded like this: conduct of the “round tables” for journalists as well as thematic trainings and educational programmes aiming to reach the goals stated; implementation of the course on refugee topics for students of International Journalism Department of the BSU; fund raising for NGO in order to provide an extensive information campaigns; introduction of the SEO-technology and specialists to promote the INA “Evolutio” site.