Sammy Mahdi in conversation with students KTA Brugge about racism and migration

In the School against Racism project, the young people of the KTA in Bruges enter into a debate with each other and with State Secretary for Asylum & Migration Sammy Mahdi. They ask questions about asylum seekers and learn a lot about the procedures. Not unimportant when you know that there are about 50 nationalities in the school.

Little migration background among teachers

“I think a lot of people don’t know what they are talking about when they talk about migration. And that we just look at what the media tell us,” says Sarah Vermaut of the third high school. Fahd says that racism is also present at school: “I think the project is important, because I have already experienced racism myself. Because I am a foreigner, Belgians are more likely to choose other Belgians than me.” (Read more below the photo.)

According to the students, racism is not so bad in a school like the KTA, which is largely due to the diversity. Although there is still work to be done in the teaching staff: “There is very little migration background among the teachers. We miss that to a certain extent in education. Those students do not feel understood at certain moments. When they tell a story we can imagine it about racism, but actually not,” says religion teacher Tamara Steyaert.

(Recognition

Pupils with a migration background do not fully identify with the teacher team. But today they feel heard by the politician, given his Flemish-Iraqi roots.

“The fact that I myself have a Flemish mother and Iraqi father, I can indicate that migration also means work somewhere. It is integration, making an effort, it is not self-evident. You also have to make that clear to them. It is not just a rose scent and moonshine. But if you put in the right effort, you can make something good out of it,” says Sammy Mahdi.

“Prejudices are already made”

The current events in Ukraine in particular make these young people think extra. “Now there is more talk about it. Thanks to today we can show how we feel and what questions we have,” says student Warre Muylle. “But actually it is already too late. We should have intervened earlier, the prejudices have already been made.”

That the students are working hard is evident in the questions they ask the State Secretary: “A lot of questions, a lot of critical questions too. “Why is it that we now show solidarity with Ukraine and possibly less in the past? ?’, ‘How many people are coming exactly?’, ‘Who is coming to Belgium?’ So they ask a lot of questions, but are also very informed.