ADVERTISEMENT“Wake up, wake up” is the chorus of the Felix Flavour music that Jeny BSGchoreographed for the Dance4Refugees campaign on Instagram and at the Bozar arts venue in Brussels.
It’s also the call to action for people everywhere to speak out and show their support for refugees.
“Everyone needs to wake up. It’s time to talk about it, it’s time to help, it’s time to react. We can’t stay silent, we have to speak out for the oppressed and that’s what I’m doing,” she told Euronews.
The social media campaign challenges people to post their versions of the choreography on Instagram and donate funds. It is aimed primarily at young people, who Jeny works with at her dance school and when she travels abroad.
“I try to reach out to the younger generation because for me they are the change, they can make a difference in this world. Dance was, for me, a great way to bring attention and change the narrative, to celebrate the strength, potential and resilience of refugees,” Jeny said.
A “legacy” of the DRC conflict
The dancer and choreographer was born in Belgium, where her family sought refuge from the decades-long conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). A background that left its mark on the artist and led her to activism in collaboration with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
“My family fled violence in the 1990s. My elder brothers spent time in a refugee camp. My mother and my father have experienced displacement, violence, fear, struggle”, she recalls.
More than 6.9 million people are internally displaced across the DRC, with an additional one million refugees and asylum-seekers in neighbouring countries, according to the UNHCR.
This “legacy” brought additional self-imposed responsibilities for Jeny, who set herself the task of “not failing” and being a voice for the Congolese diaspora: “Today I am living proof that the origin of refugees does not define the limits of refugees, but rather their strengths.”
“They are not numbers, but lives that matter”
Jeny uses her platform to promote marginalized voices, having founded the AfroHouseBelgium, a Brussels-based dance school. She’s also been working with the UNHCR since last year to amplify the stories of those forced to flee.
“Dance is universal and the refugee cause today is also universal. We know that refugees come from all around the world: Ukraine, Afghanistan, Syria, DRC and other countries. But they are not only statistics or numbers. Their lives matter, and they are like us”, she says.
The UN says there are currently 123 million forcibly displaced people worldwide, twice more than a decade ago. Almost 37 million of them are refugees. The organisation warns that recent drastic cuts in humanitarian aid funding are putting their lives at risk.
Funding for the agency is now roughly at the same level as a decade ago, said Filippo Grandi, UN High Commissioner for Refugees, at the launch of the annual Global Trends Report on 12 June.
“We are living in a time of intense volatility in international relations, with modern warfare creating a fragile, harrowing landscape marked by acute human suffering”, Grandi highlighted.
The report found that, contrary to widespread perceptions in wealthier regions, 67 per cent of refugees stay in neighbouring countries, with low and middle-income countries hosting 73 per cent of the world’s refugees.
