Swedish mega-retailer IKEA wants others to see a refugee’s plight. As a result, IKEA partnered with the Norwegian Red Cross and advertising agency POL, IKEA to create a replica of a refugee house in Damascus, Syria at their store in Slependen, Norway.
The room shares Rana’s story:
- Rana is the raising four children: Hala, Omar, Hib and Afaf in the age raging from 2 6 years old. Three of them are here own children, but she is also raising one child that is orphaned after the mother and father died.
- They are nine people living in a two-bedroom apartment, in a unfinished building. Only plastic is covering the wholes where the windows should have been. A very cold house to live in. They pay 8.000 Syrian pounds a month.
- I had to stop working as a teacher to raise the children, to make sure they are safe, she says.
- Her husband is working as a tailor, and brings back shreds of fabric from his work they can burn to produce some heat on the cold evenings.When we had to flee to this area to find safety, we did not have enough money to rent a better place. We have no money to buy mattresses and blankets, or clothes for the children. They have to sets of clothes. One to wear, while the other is being cleaned, she is saying.
- They are receiving food parcels from Syrian Arab Red Crescent (SARC), but that is not enough to cover the needs for all 9 persons living in the apartment.
- We need 5 litres of cooking oil a week. So the food parcels we receive is a good help, but it is not enough. But without the parcels, we would have nothing, Rana is saying.
- In the Jaramana-area in the outskirt of Damascus, the number of residents has increased a lot since the crises in Syria started. Syrian Arab Red Crescent (SARC) are doing daily distributions of food parcels, giving support to 5-600 people on a daily bases.
- Jaramana is considered safer than the neighboring areas, where fighting is on going. Many of the internally displaced families are renting apartments in buildings that are not complete, and not winterized. It is about 40.000 families living in Jaramana, and 7.000 families living in unfinished buildings. (Photo: Olav A. Saltbones/Norwegian Red Cross)
25m2 SYRIA from POL on Vimeo.
DIVERGE spoke to the team at POL to find out more:
Where did this idea come from?
We had been working with the Red Cross for months, so we had a lot of footage from Syria. But no matter how emotional it was, nothing got close to the experience of visiting people in a war zone. We realized we could give Norwegians that experience at IKEA. At the one place where you think of and plan the future – the apartment served as a physical reminder of how lucky we are. And how easy it is to help. Placing a Syrian home next to all the Scandinavian homes was obviously a brave move from the IKEA warehouse, but it made it clearer than any TV commercial how crucial it is to donate and help.
Why is it important to focus on refugees?
Initially, we started working with the Red Cross on the annual Norwegian fundraising event “TV-aksjonen.” This year, the fundraising was focusing on people living in war and conflict. IKEA is one of the Red Cross long time partners, so they asked us if we could come up with an idea that both customers and IKEA-employees could engage with: An idea that would show how important it is to support the Red Cross and all those who live in a war zone without water, food and medicines.
Are you working on anything else regarding refugees for Ikea?
We are not, but we’ve heard that IKEA and the Red Cross in Canada are interested in building the same apartment there. That would be amazing.
What kind of feedback did you receive?
Overall the reactions have been very positive. Some have even come all the way to IKEA to see the 25 m2 of Syria apartment – not for the meatballs or for Billy the bookshelf. People who had fled from war zones came up to us and said ‘This is how it feels.’ ‘I remember this.” That was amazing to hear.
