CEU in Action: CEU responds to Hungary's Refugee Crisis (Pt. 1)

A CEU Weekly Exposé on the CEU Community’s Continuing Efforts during the Refugee Crisis

This piece is part 1 of a three-part series on the CEU community's response to the refugee crisis during Fall 2015.

Part 2: http://ceuweekly.blogspot.com/2015/10/budapest-through-syrian-eyes-pt-2-of.html
Part 3: http://ceuweekly.blogspot.com/2015/10/connecting-keleti-pt-3-of-ceu-in-action.html

Students were not the only ones flocking to Budapest at the start of this academic year. Thousands of refugees from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, and North-East Africa (amongst others) poured into the city, in an effort to escape ongoing political turmoil and warfare in their home countries. The recent influx of displaced people generated varied and sometimes-contradictory reactions, from open arms to barbed wire fences, as civilians, organizations, and government forces set out to help, welcome, or control the refugees. The CEU community also acted, with students and faculty mobilizing to welcome and provide aid to those stranded in Budapest even before the 2015/2016 academic year had officially begun.

In order to find out more about the CEU reaction to the refugee crisis, The CEU Weekly sat down with Constanze Jeiter, the creator of the Facebook initiative CEU Helps; Yahya Al-Abdullah, a Syrian student at CEU and volunteer; Kate Coyer, who created the Keleti Wi-Fi and phone charging initiative; and Stefan Roch, who co-led that same initiative.

Photo credit: Asya Metodieva

CEU Helps: A Facebook Communication Hub for Student and Faculy Efforts

Constanze, a first year student in the History Department, has made her way to CEU from Vienna, Austria. She described her exposure to incoming asylum seekers to Austria from the war in Kosovo from the young age of seven. Despite this, Constanze corrected the idea of her having an “activism background” (an attribution featured in CEU’s coverage of the 25th Opening Ceremony). Instead, it is better to appreciate her efforts as a student who saw a need for collective reaction and initiated a group to facilitate communication and mobilization, CEU Helps. Constanze created the group on September 1st, only two days after having arrived in the city.

Recently featured in the CEU Opening Ceremonies for 2015, Contanze expressed the overwhelming positive response to her initiative as a large number of students and faculty who “actually wanted to help in the current refugee crisis and not just press the like button.” The group’s efforts include a trip to TESCO for groceries, which were then immediately brought to Keleti Station and shared with the refugees who needed them. After the September 15th Hungarian border closure and the diverted refugee presence from Budapest, the purpose of CEU Helps has shifted from an aid-mobilizing initiative to the main forum of communication for many of the CEU initiatives addressing the refugee crisis, including volunteer translator and interpreter services; donation drives; academic talks and discussions; and education sessions for those involved and interested in volunteering.

Camilo Montoya-Guevara

Cultural Heritage Studies

Canada

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