Dutch stage director Marc Krone wrote a letter to his probably well-to-do Amsterdam neighbours to get them to think about helping Syrian families and it reads like the pitch of a television documentary. Krone breaks down facts about the numbers of refugees in all of Europe then asks would happen if every street in the Netherlands housed refugees.

Imagine: 30 people on [street 1] and on [street 2] put 50 euro a month for one year in a bank account – that’s 1500 euro. We find a place to live for 1500 euro in the neighbourhood and we rent it. We invite a Syrian family to live here. We help them learn Dutch, find work, and invite them at least twice over for a meal. By that time they’ve eaten 60 times with Dutch people, that’s eating out once a week and meeting people for them.

Wouldn’t you see this as a heavenly gift if you were on the run?

NEEDED:
– 30 people who believe in doing something
– A home [ed. flat]
– Good will

Krone thought up an idea that’s not bad and could also work as a documentary. I very much doubt they could find a flat in his neighbourhood, but they could find one elsewhere in smaller cities for sure. And there’s jokes to be made about the food part, from scaring the refugees off to feeding them food they may not want to eat, but that’s easily fixed. As well, helping a family may appeal more to certain segments of the population that seem to focus too much on the single refugee men to feed their negative commentary.

Regardless, Krone makes the refugee problem easier to understand on a local level, something that is tough to do by only looking at pictures of hordes of people and barbed wire fences in the media.

(Link: www.geenstijl.nl, Photo by Wikimedia Commons user Takeaway, some rights reserved)