Prof. David Buckingham, Dr. Liesbeth de Block, Simon Aeppli (video artist)

CHICAM was an ‘action research’ project funded by the European Commission (Framework 5 Programme) and co-ordinated by the Centre for the Study of Children, Youth and Media within the London Knowledge Lab.

We set up six media clubs for refugee children in six European countries. The clubs made videos and exchanged them on the internet. The project explored the potential uses of media and communication technologies as means of enabling them to represent their experiences and influence policy in key areas that affect their everyday lives.

As a research project CHICAM addressed three major aspects of structural change in contemporary European society: the increase in global migration, the uses of new communication technologies, and the specific needs of children. Through the work of the clubs it focused on the social and cultural worlds of refugee and migrant children in centres across Europe.In each participating country, researchers and media artists employed by the project collaborated with youth workers and teachers, already working with the children. Using the internet we established a communications network to facilitate the sharing of children’s media productions. We investigated how these children represented and expressed their experiences of migration, and how their use of new media could enable their perspectives to inform the development of European educational and cultural policies. In the process, we were seeking to identify how particular experiences of reception, educational practice, family re-unification and community involvement may more effectively promote social inclusion and economic and cultural integration.

Project partners were: 
WAC (UK), CENSIS (Italy), CEIFO (Sweden) Ludwigsburg Uni (Germany),  Utrecht Uni (Netherlands),    Greek Council of Refugees (Greece).

Selected publications: 


All project reports and videos are available on the project website: www.chicam.net and a DVD is available on request. 

de Block, L and Buckingham, D (2007) Global Children, Global Media: migration, media and childhood. Basingstoke: Palgrave 

de Block, L and Rydin, I (2006) Digital Rapping in media Productions: intercultural communication through youth culture in Buckingham, D and Willett, R (Eds) Digital Generations: children, young people and new media. Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates 

Christopoulou, N. de Leeuw, S. (2005) Children Making Media: constructions of home and belonging. In: Knörr, J. and Nunes, A. (eds.), Childhood and Migration. Frankfurt am Main: Campus Verlag