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Ellen Muriel found herself volunteering in Europe's refugee camps right at the tail end of the so-called 'summer of migration' in late 2015, when more than one million refugees were reported making it onto European shores. Six months later she returned to England and refocused her energies on increasing the empathy for refugees in ‘host’ societies. A former theatre student from southwest England, she wrote a play – You, Me, and the Distance Between Us – a critically acclaimed, one-woman show that relates both her experiences and those of some of the refugees she befriended. Startlingly nuanced and intimate, she dissects the moral ambiguity of being a volunteer while using puppets and songs to pull audiences into the frustration of having nowhere to go. She's now on break from touring after taking the show across Britain and Germany.
Cameron Thibos: Welcome to openDemocracy. Let's start off with you telling us a bit about yourself and the genesis of this project. What put you on the road to activism?
