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Category: Campaign of the week

Seebrücke

We create a bridge to Safe Harbours


27/09/2023

We are a political movement, supported mostly by individuals from civil society. Everyone who supports our political goals and wants to participate is already part of the movement. Through demos and protest actions in the countryside and in the city, we fight with our numerous local groups for migration policy based on solidarity and human rights—in short: away from isolation and towards freedom of movement for all people!

For years, these images and news have been omnipresent and have given the impression that dying off Europe’s coasts is just as inevitable as the catastrophic accommodations for those who have fled. We have all become somewhat accustomed to these images and for many it appears as if there is no alternative to European asylum policy, but there are alternatives. We at Seebrücke are absolutely sure: A world is possible in which no human being has to lose their life on their way to a safe future. A world is possible in which coincidences such as birthplace or passport do not decide where a person is allowed to live. A Europe is possible that protects the rights of all people instead of “the border”—including those who have had to flee.

As a broad civil society movement, we are creating a vision of a world without isolation, without camps, and without deportations. We look to a Europe of solidarity and voluntary commitment, of inalienable human rights, and the right to asylum. Even if this vision of Europe as open and in solidarity will not become reality tomorrow (or the day after tomorrow) on account of the political majority and the political debate that has shifted far to the right, we have to fight for freedom of movement globally and for equal rights for all people, and we must, step by step, forge the path there.

Our Vision

The terrible news from the European borders does not stop: Every year thousands of people die in shipwrecks in the central Mediterranean Sea or, with Europe’s help, are prevented from fleeing and are dragged back to Libyan torture camps. In the camps at Europe’s outer borders, such as Kara-Tepe, Samos, or Lipa, tens of thousands of people seeking protection live in indefensible conditions. Everything is lacking: Shelter, food, basic medical care. The people there are at the mercy of wind and weather.

We currently consist of more than 180 local Seebrücke groups that use protests and actions to draw attention to the indefensible conditions at Europe’s outer borders. We are represented in big cities like Berlin or Munich as well as in small communities like Dargun or Neuendettelsau.

With demos and protest actions in the countryside and in the city, we demand a reversal of German and European asylum and migration policies: away from isolation and towards solidarity and accommodation! Here, the focus has been and continues to be the municipalities. By taking responsibility for asylum policy themselves, cities, counties, and municipalities can show that a policy based on solidarity and human rights is also possible in practice.

We all are Seebrücke!

Feel free to send an email to support@seebruecke.org or to visit our website.

Bildungzentrum Lohana Berkins

Education Centre for migrants in Berlin


20/09/2023

The Centre for Popular Education – Bildungzentrum Lohana Berkins provides education for migrants by migrants. During this first year, the Centre has helped many migrants learn German and understand their labour rights.

We are an education centre by and for migrants in Berlin, following the perspectives of Educación Popular. Educación Popular is a political-pedagogic process in which knowledge is gained collectively. It uses non-academic methods, which are combined with the experience of the participants. It is an approach which has been used by social movements in Latin America since the 1960s.

We create space for the development of tools with which we can actively engage in the political life of this society. We want to improve our living conditions as migrants, and introduce the perspectives of organisation and fight from our areas.

We have participated in important debates on the right to the city and the struggle for climate justice.

But we need your help to grow, to become more professional and to reach more and more migrants who want to participate in our courses.

Follow this link to help us create more paths of education, solidarity and community for migrants in Germany.

Bildungzentrum Lohana Berkins offers the following courses:

Political discussion courses in German for migrants

Conversation and political discussion course for migrants who want to improve their language skills and develop instruments for political participation. This course is aimed at people whose German level is B1 or more. You can register here.

Instruments for social-ecological transformation

Workshops for people who are active in social movements and political organisations in Germany, who want to engage with the pedagogy of the oppressed and Latin American perspectives in fights for feminism, workers’ rights, housing and climate justice. You can register here.

Lohana Berkins is one of the key figures of the Queer movement in Argentina and Latin America. We build on her figure as a pedagogue and fighter against ruling body norms.

Online Mental Health Training-Workshop

Training workshop for women with migration background (BIPoC)


13/09/2023

Context

Among the most vulnerable groups that were affected by the crisis brought by the COVID-19 pandemic were migrant women. Many migrant women, especially BIPOCs (Black, Indigenous and People of Colour), suffer from isolation, anxiety, and depression over accumulating loans and interest payments, loss of livelihoods, or the prospect of having to return to or stay locked down in abusive or violent environments. Their limited access, or complete lack thereof, to services, support networks, and institutions exacerbates, together with isolation, their already difficult situation.

The need for special support initiatives to help migrant women address their problems related to mental health and thereby enable them to participate in political and democratic life is paramount. Gabriela Germany aims to contribute to these initiatives by offering a free mental health training-workshop for women with migration background, especially BIPOCs.

This is a two-day online training-workshop that will have integrated breathwork for wellness sessions (before the workshop on the 19th and after the workshop on the 26th). To acquire a wider and deeper understanding of the theme, and to learn various methods of breathwork for wellness, participants are highly encouraged to participate in both training-workshop days.

This initiative is supported through the WE-EMPOWER Project led by WIDE+ (Women in Development Europe) with funding from the European Union.

To register, please click here or here.

For inquiries, please contact us at: gabriela.alemanya@gmail.com

Social media event posts:

About the Trainers

Dr. Andrea Martinez is an Assistant Professor at the University of the Philippines – Manila and a mental health practitioner at MIND UK. In her current work in MIND UK, she works with clients with dual (complex) diagnoses and who are experiencing multiple levels of social deprivation. She advocates for their rights to ensure that their voices are heard and facilitates mental health workshops and mental health literacy programmes. She earned her PhD in Psychology at Kings College London in 2023. Her research was about the mental health and help-seeking behaviour of Filipino migrant domestic workers and developed a culturally appropriate mental health intervention using the UK Medical Research Council framework for complex intervention.

Kim Gerlach, she/her, is a scent practitioner and breathworker. Her olfactive work is focused on the cultivation of presence and the creation of new pathways our bodies and minds can follow to heal. She seeks to expand the medium by building and resolving the tension between the familiar and the unknown. She addresses the topics of finding intuition and inner guidance, multiculturalism, and the power of breath.

Organizers: Gabriela Germany

GABRIELA is an alliance of more than 200 grassroots women’s organizations, institutions, and programs spread across the Philippines. It seeks to fight for the liberation of Filipina women and the poor majority against oppression and repression. It organizes women among the most oppressed sectors of farmers, workers, urban poor, and students. It undertakes campaigns on women’s rights, gender discrimination, violence against women (VAW), women’s health and reproductive rights, and provides direct services for marginalized women and victims of VAW.

Gabriela Germany is a local chapter of GABRIELA, organizing primarily among the Filipina women diaspora in Germany. It is a collective of Filipinas celebrating their mulit-faceted identitites, revolutionary history, and rich culture. They work to build communities in Germany that are invested in educating, serving, and advocating for the rights and welfare of Filipinas locally and globally. They actively forge friendships, solidarity, and alliances with other local and international migrant women organisations in their local areas of work to support each other and advance common advocacies. It is a very young but very dynamic organization, established in 2017 and formally launched in March 2018. Most of its members are currently based in Berlin.

Mad and Disability Pride

Celebrate the disabled and mad


06/09/2023

It’s already 10 years of Mad and Disability Pride in Berlin! This year we’ll take to the streets again on September 9, 2023, starting at 3pm from Hermannplatz. We’ll finish with a stage at Südblock at Kottbusser Tor, Admiralstraße 1-2, 10999 Berlin. Spoken contributions will be held in German spoken language and translated to German Sign Language.

The “Disabled and Mad Celebrate” Pride Parade was first organised in 2013 on the initiative of the ak moB and the AK Psychiatriekritik. The current planning plenum is made up of individuals, some of whom are active in the supporting organisations. We aim to ensure that a significant number of the people preparing the parade describe themselves as disabled or mad, or are treated as such. We are self-organised, work without pay, and make decisions together.

We often discuss the question of inclusion in the group. We can start with the premise of organising society so that no one is excluded or faces discrimination. This means that society must change fundamentally. The way in which the word “inclusion” is currently used has little to do with what we mean by it. We reject this superficial inclusion. You can find some more thoughts about this in our 2015 statement

We do not use the word “disabled” as a denigratory term. “Disabled” means that people are excluded, disadvantaged, disabled through social relations. Here are a couple of examples: there are still too few ramps and lifts, too little money for sign-language interpreters, virtually no texts in braille or simple language.

Everyone who recognises themselves in what we are saying is invited to the parade, as is everyone who supports the parade’s statements. Above all, people who are, or feel themselves to be “disabled” or “mad”. As are their supporters, companions and friends.

The route of the Pride Parade 2023 is available as a PDF. On September 9, we start at 15:00 at Hermannplatz. The route is about 1.7 km long, and ends outside Südblock, near Kotbusser Tor.

The parade will take place outdoors, where the likelihood of infecting each other with Corona or other diseases is lower than indoors. Nevertheless, there will be a particularly large number of people from at-risk groups at the parade. Therefore, and in general, IF YOU HAVE SYMPTOMS OF AN AIRBORNE INFECTIOUS DISEASE, PLEASE DO NOT COME TO THE PARADE.

More information is available from our Website.

Sonic Tomorrow

Querying the place and performance of political action and activism within discourses and practices of the sonic arts.


30/08/2023

SONIC TOMORROW is a collective of artists, curators, researchers, and activists seeking to query the place and performance of political action and activism within discourses and practices of sonic arts and experimental musics. Guided by gentle gestures, sensory narratives, and poetic storytelling, the collective centres its practice on collective and participatory listening and sounding experiences that are envisaged as spaces for gathering and reflection.

The collective curates experimental discourse formats, leads workshops, produces work for radio, develops sound installations, and dives into artistic research projects.

On 1st-3rd September 2023, Sonic Tomorrow is organising the event SITUATED ECOLOGIES – sounding ecological entanglements in urban environments. Situated Ecologies weaves together ecology, art and activism, focusing in on the locality of Berlin. Taking place at the Floating University, it aims to become a space for reflection on climate justice and ecological entanglements in urban environments.

Featuring workshops, soundwalks, performances, and collective meals, Situated Ecologies invites artistic and collective constellations to open the space for exchange, storytelling and listening. Focusing on migrant and marginalised perspectives, the three-day festival is envisaged as a gathering of artistic practices and community experiences. Through listening with and sounding urban ecologies, it hopes to expand individual practices into a collective ecosystem, cross-pollinating across diverse communities and spaces.

Register by sending an e-mail to sonictomorrowcollective[at]gmail[dot]com, For latest updates, follow our Instagram @sonictomorrow and click here for event descriptions