Norah Karrouche bespreekt SDG 11 (duurzame steden en gemeenschappen) in relatie tot een duurzaam Norah Karrouche discusses SDG 11 (sustainable cities and communities) in relation to a sustainable student project, where her students worked on a policy question regarding the inclusion and participation of refugees in Amsterdam Zuid.
I have been teaching several subjects in global history at the faculty since 2016. For one of my courses on migration, I collaborated with Academie van de Stad, a foundation and social enterprise focused on urban development. Together with the municipality, we worked on a policy question regarding the inclusion and participation of refugees (statushouders) in Amsterdam Zuid. Our students were able to collect a substantial amount of survey data among refugees in Amsterdam, analyse and present it to the municipality and local wethouder. Alongside a survey among Amsterdam citizens with refugee status, students also set up a collaborative oral history project.
The life stories that were collected gave the municipality additional and valuable insight into the experiences of the refugees as new members of the urban community. At the same time, students and refugees were able to connect with each other, and co-create historical sources and interpret their life stories. The oral histories have been deposited for future re-use. Our goal was to advance the municipality’s policymaking regarding refugees and to create a more inclusive historical archive. In this way, we modestly contributed to SDG 11 by making the local municipality’s policy towards refugees, our faculty’s curriculum and urban archive a bit more inclusive and sustainable.
Norah Karrouche