journey to the land of asylum
To my grandmother, gone on a trip, the day of the publication of this site
Travelers, Celine Aho-Niennefor text,Cedric Herroufor the preface andHippolytefor the illustration of the manual, have two points in common.
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The first is thattheir life changed when they were in their twenties.
This period, when carefree youth laughs at the future, is marked for each of them by an event. A change which means that after is no longer the continuation of before. Like the event: "it's raining". Before: "it was sunny".
After: the landscape is no longer the same. Until the smell of grass is different.
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This event is the earthquake in Haiti for Céline Aho-Nienne, a migrant family hitchhiking for Cédric Herrou and a trip to Lebanon for Hippolyte.
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These three events, which are part of cherished, bruised, resistant lands: Haiti, the Roya Valley and Lebanon, burst into their lives.
Céline Aho-Nienne, Cédric Herrou and Hippolyteaccepted them.
"To accept is to absorb the shock of its arrival. It is then to consider the event as a call which implies a response. To answer means to choose a side, to commit oneself" declares the philosopher Jean-Luc Marion._cc781905-5cde -3194-bb3b-136bad5cf58d_
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Each of them saw their youth be upset by an event. Each of them answered the call. Each of them is committed.
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Their second common point isfreedom. Free of their word, our three travelers tell us about this Other so close to Us. Free of their actions, they act, not out of duty or driven by any Judeo-Christian guilt.
No, they act because they see in the Other: a brother, a sister, a child who
We look like us.
"We know that the other is in us"
Edouard Glissant
OFPRA professional card
Photo of Clio Simon, shooting of the short film "Is it a true story telling?" at IRCAM.
Celine Aho-Nienne
Born in Réunion on November 13, 1984, Céline was a protection officer at OFPRA at the age of 25. It hears asylum seekers and proposes refugee status agreements or rejects their file. After a year in Val de Fontenay, she asked to be transferred to Basse-Terre in Guadeloupe.
In 2010,his life changeswith the Haiti earthquake. The orphans of the "beloved country" arrive in waves, hoping to find refuge in the West Indies. What they don't know is that refugee status is not granted to survivors of natural disasters. Céline announces it to them, in person, face to face. After 9 months, faced with the rigidity of the administration in the face of human tragedies, she resigned.
In 2011, she returned to Grande-Terre, Guadeloupe to open the first branch of Cimade, an association for the defense of migrants. Céline is also a legal accompanist at the Abymes detention center. "Last link with undocumented immigrants being deported, I dealt with grotesque cases in absolute urgency, since in Overseas, the law is derogatory for foreigners" she laments._cc781905- 5cde-3194-bb3b-136bad5cf58d_
In 2012, her activity resulted in her being brought before the Public Service Ethics Commission, which deemed her previous duties at OFPRA incompatible with her current duties at Cimade. The administration's decision is historic: "Prohibition of all contact with asylum seekers and OFPRA staff in Guadeloupe for a period of three years.
In 2013, she warned of the mirage of seeking asylum in an article entitled "Why you should not request political asylum in France", published on Mediapart.
In 2018, she participated in Clio Simon's film "Is it a true story telling?" which deals with the truth of the accounts of asylum seekers and their reception by French institutions.
Testifying to her professional experience in many places, Céline notes that asylum seekers are absent from these events, which nevertheless speak of them. This is the reason why she decides to writefreely a manual to their destination, defying the silence imposed on the small soldiers of the OFPRA.
Cédric Herrou
Born in Nice on June 22, 1979, Cédric Herrou settled, at the age of 23, on steep land in the Roya valley. He restores the olive trees that populate the abandoned land and installs chickens there.
In 2016,his life as a farmer changeswhen it takes en stop a migrant family.
"You have to imagine the winding road, with the cliff which on one side rises in altitude and on the other falls into the Roya. To leave them there would have been of the order of indecency" affirms- he.
Therefore, he transforms his farm, a few kilometers from the Franco-Italian border, into a place of welcome for thousands of exiles.
In October 2016, the New York Times devoted an article to him, publicizing his fight internationally.
His solidarity with migrants earned him eleven police custody, five searches, five trials and five years of legal struggle.
In 2018, Cédric is definitely relaxed. It is a historic decision of the Constitutional Council which enshrines "the freedom to help others, for humanitarian purposes, regardless of the legality of their stay on national territory".
That same year, director Michel Toesca devoted a documentary to him entitled"Free".
In July 2019, Cédric created the Emmaüs Roya community, the first peasant community of the Emmaüs movement.
In 2020, he published the book "Change your world" which retraces his journey.
Since then, he has continued his fight with humanity and determination.
Photos by Pierre Terdjman, New York Times, 04/10/2016
Excerpt from the comic strip "Les Ombres"
Poster produced for the association SOS Méditerranée
Hippolytus
Born on August 21, 1976 in Annemasse, Hippolyte is a shy boy who learns to speak at the same time as to draw.
At the age of 20,his life changesduring a trip to Lebanon. Volunteer on an artistic humanitarian site, he discovers a country at war and a lively youth that makes him want to write his first travel diaries.
"VSThe feeling continues to inhabit me constantly during my travels: to see, to live and to tell" he explains.
Illustrator, comic strip author, reporter, photographer, director, director, graphic designer, poster designer, journalist, visual artist, Hippolyte estfreein his way of telling stories.
In 2013, with Vincent Zabus, he produced "Les Ombres", a poetic comic strip on the theme of exile which tells the story of a young asylum seeker.
In 2021, he embarked on the Ocean Viking with the association SOS Méditerranée as Comics reporter et member of the rescue team. During the two months spent on the rescue ship, he feels and understands. This experience marked him deeply.
His logbook is published in the daily Liberation. Its articles recount with sincerity and delicacy the courage of the men, women and children who cross the Mediterranean "wall".
Today, a committed artist, Hippolyte wishes in his works "to describe a drop of water as precisely as possible to tell the story of the ocean."
Photo of the website Le Paratonnerre