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Brahim's trips : portrait

We met him for the first time in the beginning of June. In the bus that takes us to Strasbourg and Geneva, he’s reading « Discourse on Colonialism », written by the Martiniquese author Aimé Césaire. Brahim Benhaddou aroused our curiosity and told us a part of his history...

We were fifteen or so, street educators, social workers, lawyers, to take part in a study trip on the rights of the child organized jointly by Children's rights International and Dynamo International. During our meetings at the institutions headquarters of the Council of Europe and the United Nations, Brahim will on several occasions defend the cause of the minors not accompanied (MENA) in request of asylum in our country. For, he is responsible for the MENA Service of the Social Service
of the Socialist Solidarity.

It is where, back in Belgium, we meet him, rue de Parme, in Saint-Gilles. On the sidewalk, we pass several of his colleagues, including Kandida, from Rwanda, who's just come back from Neder-over-Hembeek, where one can find a MENA reception center. With Brahim, Karin and soon Zaccharia, she is the legal guardian of about twenty-five uprooted young people often lost in a small but
complicated country.

No vacation for the MENA's and their tutors
Administrative papers, legal procedure, social security, searching for housing, studies and formations… the needs are numerous.
- On the eve of the summer holidays, we ask ourselves : can these young children take a break during the summer ?
- “As long as they are not regularized, they cannot leave the Belgian territory. It is difficult for them, explains Brahim with his singing accent. Some centers organize summer camps. It is also a period where some MENA disappear and others reappear. This gives us more work.”
- Being a tutor is not an easy task : “some of them are in complicated situations. They often have projects different from what we propose. For example, some did not go to school in their country of origin, they learned to get by in life on their own. They come to Belgium to improve their living conditions and earn money. They are looking for a job and we propose them to go back to school, which they do not always understand. Others left their families and had hard experiences in the street, so they have some difficulties to live in a center with strict rules. There is no standard solution. We work individually with each child. Sometimes it works, sometimes they take a chance in another country, but fortunately this is not the majority."
- And why this trip to Strasbourg and Geneva ?
- “I've been mindful of the situation of MENA for three years and I wanted to find out how international institutions can improve their situation, but also how to call them out to situations in which we are often powerless as social worker.”

Belgian of Moroccan origin
To accompany these young people, Brahim is not short of assets, and in particular hi s family's history is also the story of an exodus by his grandparents. In 1966, his father was 16 and arrived with the grandfather in Belgium as part of a Work Program. They exercised various trades : manufacture of tar, asphalting roads, ferraillerie, construction of the subway of Brussels, to end up in a framework factory in… Vilvorde! Brahim's mother, then a teenager, landed also in Brussels with her family.
- “My paternal and maternal grandparents belonged to the so-called Glaha, Brahim tells, Berbers originating from northern Morocco, villages on the outskirts of border cities of Nador and Oujda. Traditionally, they used to go to work in Algeria as seasonal workers, six months a year. This is why my parents were born in Algeria under French colonization and grew up in Oran.” And since the 1960s, all Family history takes place in Brussels where his parents got married. I am a real inhabitant of Brussels, I'm always disorientated when I leave my City to go to the heartlands of Belgium ! "I was born November 4, 1979, at the Hospital St.Pierre, two steps from here. I have always lived, and grew up in Anderlecht, where most of my paternal family lives. Whereas the maternal side is situated in Schaerbeek.” Primary education at the catholic school of Sainte-Marie, secondaries at the Institute «les soeurs de Notre-Dame», Sociology at St.Louis University and then Brussels University (ULB), during which he worked as a street educator, his education was without pitfalls. “Since primary school, I was supported and encouraged by teachers, which has had a positive influence about how I perceived myself. I was recognized by them and by my family. Not everyone has that luck. Distinctions are quickly made. Some are led to no-win situations." 
- Curious, this passage in catholic school for a practicing Muslim?
- “He goes against all the stereotypes that we spread on immigration and religions. In primary school, I attended the Islamic religious courses. Our little Christian fellows talked to us about a « good news » we could not know. This intrigued me throughout my childhood, I wanted to know! He said, laughing. In high school, there was only a Catholic religious course and I read the Bible. That is part of my general knowledge."
- To a point of converting ?
- “No, he laughs, it has never been a question. But I'm so sorry to see some turning in on themselves, while our country is such a mix at cultural, religious, traditional level. For me, this mix is natural." Besides, he remembers having a happy childhood with his two elder sisters, his little brother and neighborhood friends or classmates of all nationalities : Greek, Spanish, Congolese, Tunisian… "a real melting pot of color pencils."
- Were things always so good ?
- "Oh, I experienced racism. In Antwerp I was even called a nasty dirty Arab and insulted because I spoke French. They did not accept the Little « Bruxellois » of Moroccan origin, speaking French. I try in any case to depersonalize racism. I remember every time that the Italian, Greek, Polish people were not better treated on their arrival. Racism scares me, because anything can quickly switch. I think about the last war which took a heavy toll of the Jewish community. There must be spaces of dialogue and meetings, not to make people come to an agreement, but to learn to get to know and respect each other."

Super Daddy on board
Behind his desk, he posted the story numbers, nod to Arab culture. Prominently, the photo of his children, Anissa and Ilyas, twins (5 years old), and Ismael, 3, in the middle of a large red triangle with writing in a childish way : “Super Daddy on board“. Aswel as a photo of him and his wife, Belgian of Moroccan origin. They got married when she was still a student and she's now a social worker in the housing sector. In the photo, she wears the Islamic headscarf : “for me this has never been a criterion of purity, piety or respect. I f I had listened at the time, my wife could have been black or Jewish, and perhaps both. I used to annoy my mother with that. My wife was already veiled when I met her, but it was not a criterion for me. My mother wears the Islamic headscarf, my sisters don't. For them it is an individual choice.” But he recognizes that certain families can impose the veil, which is nonsense because there is nothing more personal.
- And for him, what place occupies religion?
- “It is a cornerstone in my life, very intimate and personal. My parents passed onto me the values of Islam, but there is nothing contradictory with Human Rights or the Belgian Constitution. These are general principles of life : do not steal, do not kill, respect others, etc.. I try to share with others, even if I have to be called into question. I also found them among some Western thinkers Christians, Buddhists, atheists. At the university, I found a wide space of freedom.” One imagines that he also wants to pass on these values to his children, in a fast moving world. “I'd particularly like to transmit them an ability of discernment against the stream of information we receive, especially via the Internet. As parents, we must be vigilant. I also want to take them to Africa to show them that everyone does not live like us, to introduce them to their roots, in Morocco, but also Algeria, where my grandfather is buried.” Talking about travel, a great photo of a camel caravan in the desert is pinned behind him. “It is a rough way of living, but with such freedom, such an opening on the vastness of the world, that we would like to live."

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