SYRECZECH has become a synonym for the community of Czechs and Syrians who met several times from October 2014 to January 2015 at cultural events organized on a mutuality basis. The project was a real challenge for our association Be International because we put emphasis on its quality that we found in the inclusive approach and continuous reflection of the needs of Syrians in Brno. In the questionnaires and interviews conducted in summer months and September we surveyed what Syrians in Brno need and what we can learn from them.

Our planning resulted in a range of activities first of which was a gastronomic mini-festival in October. Later in November we focused on organizing discussions. Apart from topics of civic society and Arab spring the SYRECZECH participants came together also with International Organization for Migration's mission leader Lucie Sládková whom they asked questions on migration. In December we organized a public collection of clothes, blankets and shoes for Syria. We closed the whole project and the collection by Czech-Syrian Christmas and a concert of Ziriab band.

In January, apart from evaluation of past activities, we organized a workshop on non-violent communication which helped us to face the large amount of hate speech which we experienced a lot on our website and while organizing a demonstration for acceptance Syrian refugees.

Whole project resulted in aninterconnected Syrian community acquainted also with participants of Be International's international projects and MU students. This community allowed to show their potentials to the 5 very active Syrians who are prepared to keep on organizing cultural activities. While doing so they have improved their civil and social competencies such as team work, public activities promotion and campaign creation, as well as team coordination or intercultural approach.

We have stayed in touch with the community. Now, more than a year after the official SYRECZECH program had ended, we met with the original program participants and we want to go on joint activities. We gathered many suggestions from Syrians living in Brno, such as joint trips, tutoring Czech, courses on cooking Czech and Syrian cuisine.

Workshop: Abstract

Live library of the Czech-Syrian community in Brno

At the Horizons symposium we would like to invite you behind the curtain of the community of Czechs and Syrians living in Brno. By means of a live library we will introduce the origins of SYRECZECH, what has been difficult, what makes us happy, what we are planning further.  Live library means a chance for workshop participants to walk around the room, make stops with bearers of particular ideas and create dialogues with them about what they bring into the shared space. At particular stands you will have chance to learn about the community from perspectives of its Syrian member, coordinator of volunteers, original idea bearer, and organizer. Be International association which provides a patronage to the Syreczech project is a non-profit organization utilizing participative formats of education. Therefore we want to be as much interactive as we can also at Horizons.