On January 16th of this year, Collective Aid (CA) launched its first advocacy campaign “New Year, Old Policies” in collaboration with its partner organisations Hermine Global, forRefugees, Border Violence Monitoring Network, Calais Appeal and Europe Must Act.
The action's purpose is to “bring the voices of people-on-the-move (PoM) in Europe to the ears of the individuals who built and continue to enforce unjust systems”. With this objective, the organisations involved in the #NewYearOldPolcies partnership have put messages of PoM in printable and digital posters free-to-share and called their audience to download and stick them around their cities. People can take a photo to share it on social media channels and tag politicians involved in the border-control policies. The #NewYearOldPolicies partnership also plans to place these posters in bus stops’s advertising space of six different English cities, with the support of forRefugees.
Statements such as “At least do not hit everyone you catch at the border” (Sahan, Sri Lanka, 30) or “I tried all the legal routes. None worked” (Dawid, Eritrea, 27) evidence the need of awareness about the situation in the EU and UK borders. In 2022, BVMN released the Black Book of Pushbacks, with “over 3,000 pages with testimonies impacting more than 25,000 people on the move”, according to the organisation. Organisations in Calais keep denouncing that shelters “get destroyed on a daily basis by the French police paid by UK taxpayer money”.
Dalia Impiglia, Communications Coordinator of CA: “Hopefully, by moving together in efforts to bring the voices of displaced people around Europe, maybe the right people will listen. By uniting and working together, we can spread these messages beyond the nations where the testimonies were taken and bring them to a continental level that is impossible to dismiss.”
Elsa Beau, Raising Voices Coordinator of Europe Must Act: “Europe Must Act supports the new campaign because it’s very much in line with what we already do in our RaisingVoices project. By collecting and spreading testimonies of PoM we try to increase awareness about the situation at the borders and at the same time put pressure on politicians to come up with solutions that are in line with human rights.”
By welcoming so many Ukrainian refugees with solidarity over the last year the EU and its citizens proved that another way is possible. It’s very worrying that attempts to form a coalition of willing countries to support and relocate PoM from EU borders to cities across the continent has not made any progress. On the other side the EU and Member States manage to increase efforts to make crossing borders more dangerous, agree on plans to return people to the countries they fled and even discuss to build more fences around Europe.
The posters, done after the CA teams working in Subotica, Belgrade, Sarajevo and Calais asked PoM “what would you say to the government of the country you’re at/you want to go?”, are published on a website created specifically for the campaign. They’ll be translated into other languages such as Serbian, Bosnian, Italian, German and French. The campaign aims to end on the 28th of February. For more information, you can visit newyearoldpolicies.org
ENDS
Notes for editors
Europe Must Act (EMA) is a growing grassroots movement, bringing together volunteers and NGOs to campaign for the humane, dignified and legal reception of refugees in Europe. EMA was established in March 2020 by a group of volunteers on the Greek Aegean islands of Chios and Samos in response to the ever-worsening situation of the hotspot camps. For more information about EMA, please visit www.europemustact.org/about-us.
Collective Aid (CA) is an independent, volunteer-run organisation aiming to cater for the ever-changing needs of refugees and migrants across Europe. Their projects are located in France, Serbia and Bosnia and Hercegovina.
Key Links
Contacts
Elsa Beau, Communications Co-Coordinator and Raising Voices Coordinator, Europe Must Act
Paula Llopis, Communications Co-Coordinator, Europe Must Act
socialmedia@europemustact.org | www.europemustact.org
Dalia Impiglia, Communications Coordinator, Collective Aid