Odysseys and Horizons

“They could be those shadows, shoulders slumped, at the mercy of poverty and indifference, who squat along the edges of the ring roads, on bridges, and in the parks of our cities in utter destitution.”

They could be those shadows—crushed, reduced to mere numbers, scorned by our leaders, our government agencies, and our police, who treat them as if they were a threat, in defiance of the 1951 Geneva Convention, a pledge of international solidarity made in the aftermath of World War II.

For they all bear the same stigma stamped on their foreheads: “migrant”—to which we must add a specific designation: they are “unaccompanied minors” (UMs). Coming from distant lands—sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, or Afghanistan—they have left their childhoods behind, walking until they were exhausted in the hope of a better life.

They endured the ordeal of survivors of the Sahara, the hell of Libya, shipwrecks in the Mediterranean Sea, criminal smugglers, sexual violence, and hunger... They watched their fellow sufferers die, swept away by the waters.

They made it through.

They have a new life in Loos at the Maurice Duhamel Vocational High School. Here, in the Hauts-de-France region, alongside local students, they are training for careers in the construction industry, and for the first time, they can put down roots and plan for the future thanks to the prospect of a brighter future.” 

Cédric Gerbehaye

This project was the subject of a publication and an exhibition held at the Institute and on tour at various venues throughout the Hauts-de-France region.