All in the cards: Finding a common language
The journey for the tens of thousands fleeing conflict in the Middle East is already difficult, but their challenges are compounded by an inability to communicate with locals in Europe.
Our project is aimed at creating simple, easy-to-understand language cards that will help refugees to direct themselves when arriving in another region of the world.
We had a four-step design process, beginning with brainstorming, then meeting one-on-one with refugee students at the Association Pierre Claver, then drafting and designing.
Instead of guessing what someone who is new to Paris might want to say, we asked students to tell us, in their own words:
As inspiration for our work, we took the words of Nelson Mandela, who won the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1993 after uniting his country of South Africa following apartheid:
“Without language, one cannot talk to people and understand them; one cannot share their hopes and aspirations, grasp their history, appreciate their poetry, or savour their songs.”
Photo: Nelson Mandela in Johannesburg, Gauteng, on May 13, 2008. Photo by South Africa-The Good News/Creative Commons licensed.
