What is HEY?
HEY is a program created by Ashoka to support young migrants who contribute to their new communities by solving social problems. HEY helps them succeed by providing a supportive network of peers and experts, and tells their stories of change to a broader audience, thereby shifting the narratives about the role refugees, migrants and young people.
Communities rarely invite young migrants to participate in solving important local problems, despite their expertise and desire to participate. This only reinforces the perception that refugees are passive victims instead of the active contributors they aspire to be.
HEY provides a new setup: by finding young changemakers and supporting them to play an active role in their new communities, they can showcase their capabilities and help build a new narrative, one in which young migrants are active contributors.
Who participates?
HEY is looking for young changemakers who have contributed to small or large-scale social initiatives. Whether as leaders, entrepreneurs, organizers, ambassadors, or activists - they will have played an important role in improving the lives of many. HEY will interview these young changemakers to share their stories through social media and other online channels. In their own communities, the young changemakers will make an impact being empowered and having experienced self-efficiency first-hand.
The young changemakers will be nominated through the existing network of the Ashoka ecosystem and become part of the envisioned community through a series of ‘snowball’ conversations. The changemakers join a community of leaders and innovators that contribute to the good of all. This community forms an inter-generational ecosystem, overcoming not only division based on personal history, but also age. As part of this network, young changemakers will have access to a programme of webinars and in person training sessions facilitated by Ashoka and become part of a growing community and movement for change.
Who can change the world? For Ashoka by RARE media
What happens?
HEY sets out to challenge current prominent narratives on youth and migration through the following steps:
Nominating Changemakers
Migrant young changemakers are innovators committed to change the society they currently live in, be it before they left their home country, on their journey or in the arrival country.
Collecting Stories
From their own perspective, a series of stories tells ideas of young people who recently arrived in an environment completely new to them, co-creating a new narrative on migration
Capacity building
The young changemakers can connect to each other and further their ideas and in regional incubators, be it through training or in policy exchanges. They connect in new ways with the communities they recently joined and multiply the vision of an everyone a changemaker world by empowering others.
Hey Europe’s Young Changemakers
Meet Zaid Zaim
Zaid Zaim is a Syrian-born German young changemaker passionate about technology. At the age of 17, he joined ReDI School of Digital Integration, an initiative by Ashoka Fellow Anne Kjaer Bathel, and after a while became an educator for his peers. With his newly gained skills in mixed reality, he started rebuilding cultural heritage that had been lost in war. The ancient city of Palmyra in Syria, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, becomes alive again virtually in Zaid´s mixed reality experience. As a child, Zaid had visited Palmyra with his family and had to observe from afar how it got destroyed during the war. Reconnecting with the people caring about the conservation of the site, Zaid uses technology to link history to the present for our generation and those to come.
For his community engagement and the virtual experience using the Hololens, Zaid received the Microsoft MVP award (Most Valuable Professional). As a young changemaker in Ashoka´s HEY program, Zaid explores the role tech can play in social innovation.
Featured: Zaid Zaim at the Ashoka Changemaker Summit in Brussels in 2022 (in German)
Featured: Zaid Zaim at the Ashoka Changemaker Summit in Brussels in 2022 (in German)
Meet Krista-Marija Läbe
Krista-Marija Läbe is a young changemaker shaping the narrative on the Russian invasion of Ukraine in Germany. She was born in Ukraine and came to Germany as a child. Growing up in Germany as an immigrant, and having no complete sense of belonging, she always held her Ukrainian homeland close to her heart. As a volunteer in in asylum accommodations and schools, she supported people having fled Syria, Afghanistan and also Ukraine in 2015 to 2016. In early March 2022, she has built the press team in Vitsche, to make Ukrainian voices heard in German media. Her focus areas are tackling disinformation, and media reporting in times of war. As part of Ashoka´s HEY program, she continues building the strength of youth-led organisations.
Featured: Krista-Marija Läbe at the Ashoka Changemaker Summit in Brussels in 2022 (in German)
Krista-Marija Läbe, Podcast für Medienfrauen in 2023, On Media and War
Foto Krista in the snow
Featured: Krista-Marija Läbe at the Ashoka Changemaker Summit in Brussels in 2022 (in German)
Meet Narges Tavakkoli
Narges Tavakkoli left Afghanistan and came to Germany at the age of 14. After having lived for many months in the airport Berlin-Tempelhof that was reused as accommodation for asylum seekers, she knows exactly what children arriving from another country need in Germany. That is why, as a student of the Campus Rütli in Berlin, she founded the initiative Related Crew. The initiative raises awareness of the needs of refugee kids among new teachers. Especially for kids who have had to learn German quickly and who might have had difficult access to education during the COVID pandemic, just like Narges herself, teachers´understanding of their situation is key for equal access to education.
Narges and her initiative spreads that knowledge in order to make the school become a second home to students. Her school experienced an expressive turnaround from a “failed school” to a model school in recent years. According to students who have witnessed this positive development, this was due to teachers understanding the reality in which students live. According to Narges and her initiative, such a turnaround needs to be replicated in all schools in a similar situation. As a part of Ashoka´s HEY program, Narges encourages other young changemakers to make a difference in the education system.
Featured: Narges Tavakkoli at the Ashoka Changemaker Summit in Brussels in 2022 (in German)
Narges Tavakkoli, Beauftragte für Integration und Migration Berlin, Focus in Refugee Politics: Education (in German) 2022
Featured: Narges Tavakkoli at the Ashoka Changemaker Summit in Brussels in 2022 (in German)
Hello Europe
HEY works towards the larger vision of Hello Europe: an Ashoka initiative that works towards tackling three major challenges in the field of migration. By addressing challenges of scaling, of collaboration and of narrative, Hello Europe strives to become the collective voice of innovative and empowering citizen solutions for challenges of migration.
ContactS
Judit Costa
Director Growing Up as a Changemaker, Ashoka Germany jcosta@ashoka.org
Ibrahem Ahmad
Co-lead HEY, Ashoka Germany iahmad@ashoka.org