Within the framework of International Migrants Day, SURGE and the CCVI Network for Migrants, Immigrants and Refugees called on students, professionals, as well as the general audience to participate in the first short film contest.

5 teams made up of young people participated, they are from Mexico, Ecuador and Colombia who, through short films, showed us the current events that motivate or force people to migrate, the realities and contexts that people face during their transit and arrival to other countries, as well as stories of solidarity, reception and integration of migrants and refugees in our communities. These young people prepared for the presentation of their short films for 3 months with all enthusiasm and professionalism.

From this contest, we can highlight the interest of youth in understanding, viralizing, and cooperating with migration, the effort and solidarity that they have shown and above all, paying their respects when representing vulnerable people situations. Each life story told invites us to remember that our own families are also part of this migration story.

I quote Linet Martínez, representative of winning team CRUKS, “we put a lot of love into it, one of the challenges we had was to try to approach this issue as respectfully as possible. We collect testimonies and ideas, we feel that one of the problems that migrants go through is due to misinformation, ignorance, and lack of empathy.”

Just as Linet, we find different stories that mark a family or friends every day; it is time to welcome, listen and understand the reasons why they make these important decisions.

We were well received, and we were very happy with this first edition, we will soon be calling the second edition of our contest.

We invite you to visit our Facebook page SURGE CCVI where you will find all 5 participating short films.