"On Wednesday the 17th of June, our 3ème English class, taught by Mme. Alexis, had the pleasure to attend a video-conference organised by the CDI, where we got the opportunity to meet two very inspiring speakers : Sophie Besse and Abdulrahman Salama.

Sophie is the director of her own theatre company, named Psychedelight, and Abdulrahman is an actor at the company.
We found Abdulrahman particularly inspiring because of his story. He has now a visa and a work permit in England , but he didn’t get to this point easily. Indeed, Abdulrahman was actually a refugee, who had to flee his country as there was a big risk he could get killed, because he was protesting against the government’s rules.
After a horrible and extremely difficult journey, he finally made it to a refugee camp in Calais, named the “Calais Jungle”, where he stayed for approximately 10 months, before being able to come to England.

And what about Sophie? Well, she is an amazing person, no doubt about it, and we need more people like her in this world.
She has her own theatre company, where she puts on plays in which she casts various refugees and also other people, to really try to spread a message of tolerance.

So, during the visio, we learnt something extremely important : “never judge a book by its cover”. Most of us had a stereotypical view on migrants and refugees.When we met Abdulrahman, he told us something essential. He didn't want our pity or our condescendance, he wanted us to understand what he had been through, and wanted us to recognise it as something that no one should go through in their lifetime. It was a genuine eye opener, because we learnt that for someone to do what Abdulrahman did, you need to be extremely smart, to be able to adapt wherever you are,and with whatever you have. You need to have exceptional life skills to survive in a refugee camp like the Calais Jungle."

Laelia and Arthur, 3eme4