AUTHOR: MARIA CHRONOPOULOU | PHOTOGRAPHY: VASILIS KOUROUPIS
– I have been watching you for a long time, and I wanted to ask you how Solomon started.
Fanis – One day, back in October 2015, I resigned from the NGO I was working for, because I wanted to do something of my own. That same year, I received a scholarship from the Athens University of Economics and Business to study Social Entrepreneurship, and in the context of the dissertation I was working on, I had to develop a social enterprise virtually. And that is how I got the idea of Solomon, I really liked it, so I decided not only to do it virtually, but also for real. The first person I approached was Rosa Vassilatou, and it was with her that we set up the first team. The initial idea was a printed magazine, written only by refugees, about issues that concern them. The first person to join Solomon was Nadir, through the Greek Forum of Refugees. He was the one who came up with the idea of creating a magazine together, and so it came about. Then other people joined and it started to become more clear how we would move on.
– What exactly is Solomon?
Fanis – Solomon is an elephant (reference to the logo) whose main objective is social inclusion. What makes it interesting is its approach—this makes it different to other organizations that perceive this issue more unilaterally. Solomon, by using media as a tool, seeks social inclusion through all its members.
– If I understand well, you basically get refugees to take part in the game, you do not just observe them.
Nadir – Yes, we treat them as equals. For us, these people who have recently come over are the underdogs, but they are not poor. The role of social inclusion is difficult and depends on how everyone perceives it. It is easier to accept that “the other person” is next to you, rather than to fully engage in a conversation with them and really approach them. They may not understand you initially, but the interaction that will be take place is what is needed for social cohesion and integration.
Nasruddin – To this, I would like to add that social inclusion happens when someone is interested in learning our culture, what we are like, how we live, how we have lived. That’s how we get closer. Because it is completely different to watch the news on the TV than to sit at the same table and talk to the other person. It is then that you can understand who the “other” is, what they do, what they have studied, what they were in the middle of doing and had to leave behind, and why they were forced to travel 2,000-3,000 km and seek a new life. Recently I was talking to my cousin, he has studied programming and has been living in the Netherlands for 20 years and he is now working in one of the largest companies. We were saying that if there hadn’t been a war in Afghanistan, neither would I have come to Greece nor would he have gone to the Netherlands. It is very easy to say, “That person is a refugee, a migrant on the road,” but the point is to help us develop our skills, because we do have them.
– I would like to ask you about Solomon and the elephant. What is the meaning of the elephant?
Fanis – As I told you before, the first person who joined Solomon was Rosa, who is now working in another organization. In one of our initial meetings on how to name this project, I asked her to tell me her favourite character from a book or a film, because she reads a lot and she is cinephile. And she told me that this was too difficult, because she had more than one favourite character and she couldn’t choose. So I suggested that she opened her bag there and then and gave me the book she was reading. She was reading the “The Elephant’s Journey”, by Jose Saramago. I asked her about it, and she told me the story: the King of Portugal bought the elephant at some point to offer him as a wedding gift to the Duke of Austria. But because the elephant was living in India, he had to travel from India to Portugal and from there to Austria on foot. The book narrates how different people treat the elephant during his journey. Although the elephant symbolizes something different for the Indians, the Greeks and the Germans, at the end of the day, it’s just an elephant. She tells me this phrase and I tell her that the story of the elephant is exactly like that of the refugees. They travel from country to country on foot, they are treated differently according to the culture of every nation, but at the end of the day they are just people. This is how the elephant came about.
– What exactly do you do? Because you are doing a lot.
Fanis – We have been involved in a lot of things, but we have learned from our mistakes and we are improving. We are currently focusing on three projects. When someone joins Solomon, they follow some educational programmes about photography, video, journalism and communication, choosing what interests them. Then they do their internship in our online magazine and then the most talented join the Cue team, where they produce content for others. By producing content, I mean photography, video, graphics, websites and social media for other entities, organizations, NGOs and/or for profit-making companies. In this way, we offer a cycle of services that include education, internships and the job market, all in one organization. For every project that is implemented through Cue, the person who is doing it is getting paid.
Nadir – For example, a videographer who might be a refugee can make a video and will get paid.
– So you basically function as an agency?
Fanis – Exactly, because despite the fact that we are a non-profit (and non-governmental) entity, we try not to depend on funding. The only dependency of the whole team is the desire for work.
– Have you got any funding so far?
Fanis – So far we have mainly won competitions. Our first funding was from the Start programme and through it we implemented our first training programme on journalism. Another funding we have received is from the Open Society Foundations to put the second phase of our training programme into force, focusing on photography and video. We have also been given an award by the European Commission as one of the best media outlets on inclusion in Europe, and we also received a cash prize.
– As regards to the videos you make, I saw on the European Federation of Journalists’ website for the Media Against Hate campaign that out of the 5 favourites your video was the top one.
Fanis – Yes, it was a contest we won last year. The technical production was done by Athens Live, but the concept was ours. Initially, there was another scenario, but on the way, it took on a humorous slant.
– In which languages are your articles (written)?
Fanis – All our articles are in Greek and English. Because the refugees and migrants who live here are in contact with people from their country, and the latter do not have much access to information about what is happening in Greece. The next step is to make it possible for someone to publish an article in their mother tongue (e.g. Farsi, Urdu) so that there is direct access to information, with translation in English and perhaps later in Greek.
– I had read in one of your articles that social inclusion is a matter of education for all of us.
Nadir – Obviously. This is what I said at TEDx (Moraitis School). Everything is shaped through personal education and self-knowledge. A person who does not have these two cannot know the “other”. Because a person who cannot recognize him- or herself finds it difficult to recognize someone else. I have recently read a phrase by Eckhart Tolle (author), according to which “Stupidity is relatively harmless, but intelligent stupidity is highly dangerous”. There are people with education, in (key) positions, that make you rethink this concept.
– It is impressive that you speak Greek so well!
Nadir – Let’s not get carried away by flattery!
Nasruddin – Well Nadir speaks better than me. Before I came to Greece, when I was in the 7th grade, the language teacher at school told us that any country you go to, the first thing you should do is learn the language. That’s where everything starts. If you go to a (public) service it is not the same to speak in English as to speak in the language of the country you are. People say that this language is difficult. No. Wherever you go and live, you have to learn the language. My cousin lives in China and he speaks Chinese.
Nadir – There is a big difference. Likewise, language is a source of knowledge for everything.
Nasruddin – I believe we have covered everything.
– Absolutely, though I would really like to put the voice recorder back on recording.
