Budapest Through Syrian Eyes (Pt. 2 of CEU in Action: CEU Responds to Hungary's Refugee Crisis)

This piece is part 2 of a three-part series on the CEU community's response to the refugee crisis during Fall 2015. 

Part 1: http://ceuweekly.blogspot.com/2015/10/ceu-in-action-ceu-responds-to-hungarys.html
Part 3: http://ceuweekly.blogspot.com/2015/10/connecting-keleti-pt-3-of-ceu-in-action.html

Photo credit: Diego Cupolo

It was not until classes at CEU began that Yahya Al-Abdullah, a first year Master of Public Administration from Syria, came to realize where he had just moved. “The day I arrived in Budapest I went to Keleti Station and I saw thousands of people there. I started by walking around and talking to them, trying to see what was going on.” Yahya told The CEU Weekly. “The third week in Budapest was a little bit strange for me, because I had already been in Budapest for more than two weeks, but it didn’t feel so. I was running to very specific places all the time, then all of the sudden I kind of woke up. It was like a long long nightmare.”

A native of Aleppo, Yahya left Syria in 2011, before the war escalated to its current state. He first relocated to Georgia, and then to Turkey, where he worked as an English professor at a private university for three years. It was in Istanbul that he first became interested in the refugee situation. His first film titled “We don’t Stay in Camps” documents the lives of members of the Domari minority from Syria who now live in the streets of Istanbul.

“My choice was very clear” said Yahya when talking about what motivated him to come to CEU. “I found CEU, especially the School of Public Policy, to be a good place to get more knowledge of what is going on internationally, get acquainted with policymaking…and get in contact with international organizations working on Human Rights issues.”

Yahya was clearly impressed with CEU’s response to the crisis. “In a way I did not feel like I was alone there. I was meeting people in the classroom and then meeting them again in the evening at Keleti. I was working with people who are part of other organizations and who I also see at CEU. That made me feel like I belonged to an active group within the University. I was happy to see that CEU did not take a passive stance.” Yahya also highlighted the importance of the charging stations and the free Wi-Fi that CEU provided for refugees. “Those were some of the most useful things… because that helped them [the refugees] stay on top of the changes that happened every day, and it allowed them to keep in touch with their families.”

Corrado Minardi

School of Public Policy

Italy

This piece originally appeared in the 61st issue of the CEU Weekly. To view the entire issue, please visit: http://issuu.com/ceuweekly/docs/61stissuefullforissuu