Our project includes a competition encouraging the participation of all interested. Nansen was an outstanding man; he contributed to save millions of lives during the precarious world after WWI.
Nansen contributions to humanity are numerous in several fields. He organized successfully the repatriation of war prisoners after the conflict in a situation marked by Russian civil war, the collapse of empires in central Europe and rise of new States. He was able to create and effective working system helping around 450 000 people to reach their homeland.
His contributions to mitigate the Russian Famine were fundamental to save millions of lives, analysing the reasons, dealing effectively with aid and protecting the children. Nansen has to be effective because of the urgency of the crisis but at the same time, he dealt with Soviet authorities obtaining from them an unthinkable level of independent management. He also acted as a bridge between West and East, as most of the European countries did not recognize politically Soviet Union. Nansen was creative to solve countless obstacles to save humans.
Nansen was crucial managing refugees from different conflicts, helping them on site and developing an action plan based on implementation of custodial care, repatriation, rehabilitation, resettlement, emigration, integration. He dealt with Armenian genocide, Greek refuges from Anatolia, Assyrian Turkish population from Greece and Russian refugees among others. Around 2 million exiled from Russia were resettled all over Europe and Nansen showed again determination and innovation to overcome difficulties. As an example, Nansen passport, originally and officially stateless persons passports, were internationally recognized refugee travel documents from 1922 to 1938, first issued by the League of Nations to stateless refugees. The precipitating event for the Nansen passport was the 1921 announcement by the Soviet Union revoking the citizenship of Russians living abroad, including some 800,000 refugees from the Russian civil war, people who became stateless and whose passport was not valid anymore, trapping them.
Design your own plan to help migrants, any person who is moving or has moved across an international border or within a State away from his/her habitual place of residence, regardless of (1) the person’s legal status; (2) whether the movement is voluntary or involuntary; (3) what the causes for the movement are; or (4) what the length of the stay is.
The European Union is facing a challenging movement of population, wars in our borders as Ukraine or Syria, unstable political situation in neighbouring countries, economic reasons, environmental changes, a great variety of reasons drifting in a constant flow of people towards the European Union.
The EU needs to modernize the path settled by Nansen regarding of custodial care, repatriation, rehabilitation, resettlement, emigration, integration. In addition, new creative initiatives (as Nansen passport) are needed.
Draft your proposal on how the EU should deal effectively with migrants, protecting their lives and respecting the lifestyle of the local population.
The proposals must include:
The most relevant papers will be awarded with high quality pictures from our exhibitions, and the most creative and innovated proposal will be presented in the final conference of the project in Tallinn, Estonia. It includes the trip for all the members of the team proposal fully covered by the project (flight, accommodation, participation in the conference and meals).
Nevertheless, the best award for your participation in our competition, Be a XXI century Nansen, is your contribution to create a better world and help other humans with your ideas!