Every year thousands of people from developing countries apply for a visa to western countries, often facing a tedious visa application process: worrying whether they have the right documents, whether a typo might have put their application directly into the reject pile, or just anxiously awaiting a response. At worst, getting a visa successfully is completely mystifying. And what if after doing all the hard work your visa gets denied? The anxiety and fear of rejection are made even worse by locations where the embassy are located especially in developing countries like Ghana and Kenya. The security surrounding the facilities look designed to induce fear. The question then here is who really fears who?

On the contrary, as of July 2020, the German passport was ranked as the 3rd strongest passport in the world: German passport holders can travel to about 189 countries without a visa. The problems of visa application will be therefore new for many German, or European, passport holders.

In this meetup, Thomas C. Kalunge invites to immerse yourself via the design thinking process into the experiences of potential migrants. This journey help you understand the process of applying for visa coming from a developing country, and make the invisible border visible. Are the the strict regulation to access the consulate and the complicated application process strategically designed to induce fear? If so why?