Such an easy way to make people feel welcome and seen

In Hamburg, there is a “ship greeting station” called Willkomm-Höft (“welcome point”), where every ship is greeted going in and out of the port. I have always loved that place because in addition to a “welcome to Hamburg!” or “hope to see you again soon!” announcement and the Hamburg song, for each ship they tell you where it is coming from or going to, where it is from originally, and each ship is also greeted with their national anthem. And there are ships from so many different countries going in and out, and most of the time the whole crew comes out and stands on deck and waves, sometimes they blow the ship’s horn. It’s a bit like all the flags I saw today in Helsingborg (see featured image) — it just feels heart-warming to me to see so many countries represented together, whether I spot the German flag in the mix or not. And then, on the other side of Öresund, in Helsingør, we saw the coolest thing!

A street food place had a map and a sign: “Put a pin … let us know where you are from”. Look at all those pins!

Of course, some of the pins are likely not serious, but the general distribution does not seem too unlikely.

And then we were in a museum and again there was a map, this time with a sign “Show us your home country […] It’s a joy to see where everyone comes from”. This time there were spare pins available, so I put mine!

And this reminded me of a picture I took a couple of weeks ago at the IIIEE in Lund: In their fancy room, they have flags from every country they have ever had a student from!

More flags in different corners of the room…

And this is lovely. Welcoming. Inclusive. Of course, the IIIEE version requires a bit of effort (but that makes it even more special that they still do it!), but even just a map and pins (or sticky dots, if there are health and safety concerns; or an electronic map with pins) would make such a difference in how welcoming a space feels, how represented people can feel in that space, how seen. Just this little act of curiosity towards an anonymous visitor felt so meaningful today! Of course, home country is probably one of the less interesting aspects of people’s identity, but it is definitely a start! Now I want such a map at my workplace, and everybody visiting that space adding to it!