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Category: Campaign of the week

El Sur Resiste

Global Action on October 12, 2023


11/10/2023

More than two thousand years ago, the war between empires for the acquisition of land, natural resources, and geostrategic trade sites was based on the conquest of territories and the creation of borders. This was always done at the expense of the destruction of cultures and the blood of indigenous peoples.

This history of genocide and plunder, has Europe at its centre, seeking to expand itself to Africa, Asia, and Oceania. Thanks to this massive plundering, the great economic and political powers emerged. They started to compete for power and hegemony in a world under construction, for its borders and trade routes.

This ambition would finance campaigns of “exploration” to all corners of the planet. One of them took place more than 500 years ago, with “the discovery of America, the clash of worlds”. This history was written by the victors, with the blood of millions of murdered indigenous people and the ethnocide of millenary cultures.

At this point in time, the plundering and looting became global, and the main commercial routes of the great capitals were established. This, together with the advance of industry and technology, made historical developments more and more violent, happening simultaneously everywhere in the world.

Here and now, when we talk about NEOCOLONIZATION, we reflect beyond the theory, discourses, and historical debt of the GLOBAL NORTH (these are issues that we must continue to work on individually and collectively). To speak of NEOCOLONIZATION is to speak of the threats and violence happening to all corners of the GLOBAL SOUTH and to MOTHER NATURE. These are destroying our PRESENT and threatening the FUTURE of all of us.

However, this is also a history of resistance. We are the insurrections against pharaohs and kings, we are the revolts against landowners and rulers, we are the guerrillas, the independences, the revolutions, the strikes, the occupations, the recovery of lands, and of course we are also Organization and Autonomy, Cultures and Traditions, Alliances, Networks and Articulations, we are our Ancestries and Territories. We are equal because we are different and among so many differences, there are more things that unite us, than those that divide us.

In order not to forget, to remember, to unite in the face of so much adversity, WE CALL on the Peoples, Communities, Organizations, Collectives, Cooperatives, and all expressions of social movements relating to Indigenous, Peasant, Popular, Anarchist, Feminist, Environmentalist, Human Rights Defenders, Free Media and other struggles, to organize and carry out actions on October 12 in a decentralized, organized and coordinated manner.

  • We demand the end of the dispossession, plunder and destruction of nature and territories by big global capital and corporate states!
  • Stop racism, fascism and imposition of new military and industrial borders, migration is not a crime!
  • Stop violence and repression against social movements, organizations, communities, and peoples defending nature, the future and life itself on the planet!
  • Stop the war of extermination against the ZAPATIST, Kurdish, PALESTINIAN peoples and all the peoples of the GLOBAL SOUTH, who struggle and resist for a dignified human life!
  • Enough of trans-feminicide violence, respect for diversity and gender dissidence!
  • We demand Truth and Justice for those who were disappeared and murdered!
  • Freedom for political prisoners!
  • For housing and a dignified life, stop gentrification and predatory tourism!
  • If they touch one of us, they touch us all!
  • For an anti-patriarchal, anti-capitalist, anti-colonial, anti-racist, anti-racist and anti-imperialist struggle, another system is possible!

THE SOUTH RESISTS! in every corner of the GLOBAL SOUTH!

We call you to stay tuned for information and future communications through the website www.elsurresiste.org.

Harvesting Resilience: Foraging and Guerilla Gardening

A workshop series by Zeren Oruc


04/10/2023

This workshop series gives you the opportunity to rethink your relationship with nature, food, and consumption. You will be able to connect with different people in an exchange of skills, knowledge, and thoughts.

What is this workshop about?

The Harvesting Resilience workshop series is part of a long-term research project focusing on the food-land-culture relationship to examine the impact of our food production and consumption habits on the environment, land degradation, and forms of exploitation. Curated by Zeren Oruc, the project looks at how we eat our land, our cultural and emotional connection to food based on where it’s grown, and less extractivist practices such as the disappearing knowledge of foraging, food banks, gardens, and more.

By using foraging and guerilla gardening in “community gardens” as one of the artistic and curatorial methodologies, the workshops intend to decolonize and reclaim urban landscapes and ecological narratives through the lens of BIPOC and people with migration backgrounds. While tackling mainstream Western environmentalism that dismisses indigenous and migrant knowledge, we want to relearn and share our knowledge in relation to the plant world and form new connections where we feel safe in nature. To facilitate the generation of this intergenerational and intercultural knowledge, we invite participants to join us, along with their elders*, in remapping Berlin’s foraging paths and sharing their experiences.

The workshops will be guided by curator Zeren Oruc, who is revisiting her place in gardening and foraging after relocating to Berlin, and horticulturist, forager, herbalist, and kochende Gärtnerin Lea Nassim Tajbakhsh. On the first day of the workshop, we will go on a guided foraging tour where we get to know each other and share our knowledge. On the second day, we will meet at Oyoun’s community garden for an intimate discussion about food and belonging in nature, and revisit the idea of community gardens through guerilla gardening principles.

*The term “elders” here refers to older individuals who possess wisdom and knowledge to share and are not limited to family. You are welcome to join us with a neighbour or someone you might want to learn from. If you don’t know such a person, join us anyway, maybe you will connect with someone.

Dates:

Saturday, 7th October: 13:00 – 15:00 h (Treptower Park)

Sunday, 8th October: 11:00 h – 14:00 h (Oyoun Garden)

Language: English

Ticket: FREE ADMISSION!

The workshops are open to those who self-identify as BIPOC, and are limited to 10 people. For any questions or inquiries, please contact the curator at zerenoruc(at)gmail.com

Please come prepared for any type of weather conditions with warm/water-resistant shoes and raincoats.

Programme:

DAY 1: Harvesting Resilience: Waving stories through foraging

A guided workshop about the fundamental principles of foraging, local plants, their use, and sharing knowledge and stories. We will meet at Oyoun’s garden for a warm-up conversation and have a foraging walk.

Please come prepared for any type of weather conditions with warm/water-resistant shoes and raincoats. If you would like to collect plants and herbs on the go, we recommend bringing a pair of scissors and a canvas bag or a small container.

DAY 2: Harvesting Resilience: About the gardener

A discussion-based gardening workshop about our rights to green spaces, gardening communities, food, and more. We will meet at Oyoun and use a portion of the garden. Please come prepared for any type of weather conditions with warm/water-resistant shoes and raincoats.

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.