Open Up Interview for Evolve Magazine about our Non-Profit Project with Refugee Youth in Africa
Article about the Open Up project for refugee youth, written by the Evolve magazine, November 2021.
This is an interview I did for Evolve Magazine about my non-profit project for refugee youth in Africa, titled “Breathing new Life”. This issue, released on 13/11/2021 deeply explores the myth of the market — and to search for creative visions and designs for a new economy and society. Among inspiring others, like Tyson Yunkaporta, my work was highlighted as Global Integral focusing on the future of education; alive learning; making humans possible; hope in action, and new leadership.
Breathwork with and for refugees in Africa
Katrien Franken is founder of Open Up and teaches breathwork and inner development to individuals and in organizations, initiates research projects on the effects of breathwork and also takes this inner practice into the largest refugee camps in Africa. How can breathwork support people in this challenging situation? And how is it to engage with them across the difference of place and privilege? We spoke with Katrien Franken about a living exploration of going beyond limitations and finding our common humanity.
e: Now how did you come to the idea to work with refugees?
”I’m passionate about bridge-building between worlds, and to create opportunities for transformation of people and through that transformation of society and the world. Through my work, Paulinho Muzaliwa Josaphat, founder of Unidos projects in Uganda, contacted me. I felt immediately inspired to learn more about his story, the community, and life in the camp. His nationality is Congolese and he fled his country in 2017 and became a refugee in Uganda in 2018. He lives in Nakivale Refugee Camp in Uganda with as many as 110.000 refugees from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Somalia, Burundi, South Sudan and Ethiopia. It is one of the largest refugee settlements in the world.
There is a lot of humanitarian help to provide the basic needs, which is very needed — and one can ask “what does their need want that can re-introduce their humanness”? I became curious about the question: why is nobody approaching the inner state of humanity in such places that have been made ill? How can we genuinely and generously generate insight (in-side) that can catalyze a new story that can transform culture and inform culture differently for generations to come? It’s also needed to start feeling our future into being. I see embodied breathwork and inner growth work as a basic need for that. I wanted to work from that inner place with and for people in such a situation. It takes tremendous courage to make strange a world of conditioned worldviews and ideas of belonging, and stigmatized hopelessness and finite loops of power structures. When we recognize that we no longer belong to ourselves because of identity politics, economical structures, colonization, who can we become? I wanted to help with creating new ways of being and seeing, from an inner learning perspective. Creating ways to make humans possible beyond our race, religion, identity and the things that are put in between us. Barriers, mechanisms and shadows of the systems, inside and outside of ourselves.”
e: How do you work with the refugees?
“It’s an alive learning exploration, and this is the whole idea of the project. The first prototype process was 6 weeks and shared a unique methodology. It takes a radical approach to breathing and shifts perceptions in thinking and feeling to allow creative explorations of a better world for people. Breathwork acting as gut microbiome, with rich inquiry explorations and provocative, supportive and challenging 3-hour live online sessions each week. Curiosity as a core element for discovery. Open spaces for reflective dialogue and deep listening. Experiential and experimental journeys, sound, meditation weaving into movement, group work and embodied breathwork practices to create a shared, immersive experience.
The Unidos team had one laptop available and youth fellows came from far to attend as the camp covers about 184 square kilometers. Some walked for 30 minutes and were welcomed in the family home of Paulinho and his wife Mariam. A part from participating, Paulinho also helped to translate everything to the mother tongue as only few have learned to speak English language well.
One of the inquiries we worked with was: What does breathing mean to you? It’s a simple question but when you open up to it systemically — also from the inner systems learning perspective, there is a whole world underneath to unravel and descend into. In this process of breathing together and of opening up into new and unchartered territory, that I realized that I don’t know who’s learning who. I feel they are learning me, about their willingness, their sensitivities, their intelligence, and nuances. I fall silent in explaining the new that I’m experiencing because it also takes time to feel each other. It doesn’t have a language yet. We are in the middle of discovering it, earthing down into our own body wisdom. Like a mycelium, a network of people is starting to cohere from a willingness to really explore the possibilities for new vistas within ourselves in this emergent breathing space. At the same time, we allows ourselves to fall apart generously into the unexpected. From this source we can open to collective imagination and social courage.”
e: Breath is such a basic human activity or quality. All humans breathe. So, the question you ask, everyone can answer in some way. It goes beyond separation.
”Yes, what does it mean for you to breathe? We investigate that together and invite full-body intelligence. What respiration feels? What it thinks? How it would think? Where does it come from? Who gave birth to it? How does it connect in relation to my life? If I’m not breathing freely, then what is holding me back? In search for “how” to breathe, this search — the “how” also is the very nature of inspiration. The breath is a connector to life, to the mystical, to nature. In spirit of Nora Bateson’s work, I could say: Our breathing is a portal into discoveries, because it’s never ‘just’ breathing and nothing more. It opens a connection to everything that is alive — and it is up to us to feel into it differently. In the connection that I can make with the living world, lives the learning.”
e: How do the refugees experience this work with the breath?
”The process makes possible the release of what was taking hostage in their fear, in their joy, in their power, in their connectivity, their imagination and agency. Most of the people in the community are still facing negative emotions, and are traumatized by their past life (hunger, war, conflict, violence, child-labor..) which in turn causes physical and mental health issues, negative emotions, traumatism, fear and anxiety. The Open Up process helps them to learn how to relate and deal with their inner state with agency and reverence. Their experience is of feeling the release of stress and negativities in the heart, and of having more clarity of mind. Forgotten parts about themselves become available again for discharge and processing. It allows them to regain their own hopes long abandoned because of the struggles and pains struck in their lives both back in their countries of origins, and in the refugee camp. It inspired a collective hope in action. Some started to initiate little startups, initiating projects on their own with new regained self-confidence for improving life in the refugee camp. To think differently about themselves, their business and their future.
Through practice, breathwork becomes an actor of attracting the goodness of health, of connection, of needs. This creates movement. All these steps start to contribute to Life where change in life starts showing up. But the real effect is that they act on what is possible from that goodness. They have a reason not to fall back into an old pattern however difficult the challenges, they are attuned with the new possibility that’s arising. This is the hope in action.”
e: How do you deal with traumatic memories that maybe come up in this inner work?
“I hold space for it as best as I can with the invitation to make ourselves available for what is most alive — and to open together to what comes alive. Together we are in the knowing that we are not alone. That we are being seen in discomfort and challenges without judgement, so we can allow for more of our humanness. It happens in all the nuances. I step on the brakes at times to give way for what wants to come through, and to be very attentive to the expression of it. If someone is smiling, there might be something traumatically happening internally. Or if somebody is really energetic and alive, there might be deep exhaustion underneath. So, I have to look and listen, and this is what I am experienced in; to engage with possibilities for more wholeness and help bring it into an awareness: ‘Hey, I’ve just noticed something and I’m curious, is that something that resonates with you?’ I give space to listen into the words and into the gaps, into the letters that don’t exist but form part of their expression. It’s an interaction of ‘voicing’ what is alive without distinguishing the complexity underneath that is always changing. Learning to consciously dialogue from an experience is incredibly valuable for many reasons. We bring into reflection a feeling through language, which at the same time in sacrifice of the breath. In each session we re-discover again what is valuable, we re-vitalize again our perspectives and perception, we celebrate ourselves again and honor every step we take. Everyone has a place. And it’s not just me offering the work — it’s their curiosity to keep continuing the work. Living is in the action.”
e: How do you see the future of the project?
“This project started in 2020 in the COVID-19 pandemic and navigates in a liminal space. In a growing community I seek meaning through philanthropy giving back and doing what is virtuous and regenerative. My aim is to govern, envision and create deep collaboration and innovation that over time will fund and grow as an autonomous ecosystem. We can see this in the result of the building that is almost finished, and which Open Up has largely help fund.
Through practice groups and training, where skills can be developed we hope to inspire and engage people and organizations to become active co-creators and local co-facilitators for this work. It should become accessible for everyone, through everyone. Decentralized and regenerative. The project is an invitation to give voice to the future of people, in spirit of Ubuntu. The people as the resource, capable, and having the capacity to create a better future. A radical investment and love of individual responsibility. Together we are working on creating possibilities for refugee youth in Kenya, Tanzania and DR Congo to become part of the Open Up Alive Learning education program, but this will depend on more financial resources to bring the healing effects breathwork there.
About Katrien
Katrien is a multiple award-winning artist and founder of Open Up. She creates, curates and facilitates psychotherapeutic breathwork experiences, what she coined ‘alive learning‘ education. Opening up to inner innovation that can provide holistic solutions for global problems. She has applied her inner growth development background and breathwork across multidisciplinary projects, and for leaders, organisations, institutions, policy-makers, purpose-driven networks, and communities. She works with widely different people and largely with younger generations. Her work nurtures senses of the unknown, leading the inquiry towards social transformative change, conscious responsivity, and activism.
More about the Open Up project here
