An Africa Unite Peer educator held a workshop on Sunday 14 July at the Salt River soccer field. The field was filled with youths of different countries: Burundi, Uganda, Rwanda and DRC. They were guests of Djuma, one of the peer educators at Africa Unite, who organized the soccer team.
One of the refugee soccer players stood up to say: “I didn’t know that refugees also have the rights to be treated with respect like South African citizens because of what I used to see at Home Affairs. It was not fair. There was not respect of refugees. Now I understand that we all have rights and to treat all persons with respect and dignity. Also we can’t vote because we are foreigners, which means our most important right is to be protected and to respect the civil rights of South Africa.”
The youth workshop brought together refugee players of 4 different countries who live around Cape Town concerned about human rights. The workshop taught them about refugee, asylum seeker, and immigrant rights. They even came up with the idea of a soccer tournament for them to create social cohesion with local South Africans.
Attendees found the workshop very informative. Some of them said that the information took away their fear of being refugees and asylum seekers, because now they know what their human rights are—the respect and dignity for a human being.
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