Climate justice
We resource initiatives focusing on migration that work with a justice-oriented and intersectional understanding of land, extraction, ecology, and climate breakdown.
Pasol Communità di Supporto alla Solidarietà
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Italy
2023
We seeded Casa del Mutuo Soccorso (House of Mutual Aid) in Partinico, Sicily, an initiative that cultivates the growth of resilient communities centered on deep ecological relationships against the exploitation of people and land. This co-operative community center arises out of self-organised coalitions between Italian activists and African migrant agricultural workers, who have independently come together since 2015 to oppose exploitation of migrant labor and precarious shelter conditions.
They’ve built up grassroots resistance to the Italian agro-industrial sector across Sicily, Calabria, Puglia, Campania and the northern part of the country – a map of labor mobility that overlaps with trajectories of people arriving in Europe through the Central Mediterranean. The inter-ethnic community space acts as a centralised point for migrant agricultural workers to build power in coalition with local trade unions during olive harvest season, as well as activate civil society's consciousness through public events on the intersection of migration, agriculture, and labor.
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CommemorAction
Tunisia
2022
A long-standing tradition of resistance, CommemorAction combines the ceremony of ‘commemoration’ with the activism and tactics of ‘action’. Led and self-organized by the mothers and families of missing migrants, this was a week-long movement-building conference that united international and local groups in Zarzis, Tunisia. The project aimed to bridge African and European communities, enhance forensic and legal knowledge for those directly affected, and highlight the link between ecological destruction and European migration policies by collaborating with local fishermen. It culminated in a national demonstration marking the anniversary of a 2012 shipwreck involving 130 individuals who departed from Sfax, Tunisia, to the Lampionne islet near Lampedusa, Italy.
In addition to financial resources, our participatory team attended this conference as an in-person retreat to strategise and deepen relationships between each other, as well as learn from and show solidarity to partners outside of Europe.
Transborder Summer Camp
France
2022
The Transborder Camp is the largest grassroots-centric and self-organised gathering of an “underground railroad” for and with movements working on forced migration. We resourced its second ever iteration with 700+ participants of migrants and activists across Europe and Africa coming together for several days at Zone à Défendre (Zone of Defense) in Nantes, France, an autonomous area occupied by grassroots activists defending the forest and meadow environment from an airport construction. Strategic exchange took place through horizontal discussions in small groups with multiple simultaneous languages: 40+ parallel workshops were on the program, ranging from relationship and trust-building, critical reflections on movement wins and losses, sharing insight into cross-border struggles, and collectively building an intersectional approach to migrant justice across the realms of queer-feminism, climate, digital justice, and more.
In addition to financial support, we attended the Camp as an in-person annual retreat, strategising about the development of the Fund and deepening our relationships on an eye-to-eye level with the transnational migrant justice ecosystem.
Stand By Me Lesvos
Greece
2021
We resourced a recycling project initiated and self-organised by migrant residents from within Moria Refugee Camp in Lesvos, Greece. The project’s mission is increasing environmental protection, building coordination and organising capacities of the camp’s residents, forging new connections between camp residents and local Greek providers, and ensuring sanitary and well-being measures during COVID-19. Camp residents return empty bottles in exchange for food items, cold water, or other needs prioritized by the residents.
With 1500 participants per day, the exchange system offers a chance for refugee self-organisation while changing the perception of residents as passive ‘recipients’ of aid to engage in more horizontal systems of exchange and mutual cooperation. Residents also self-organised trainings – from refugees to refugees – based on their areas of specialization and interest.
Top Manta
Spain
2021
We seeded Top Manta, an initiative created from the streets of Barcelona by and for undocumented migrant workers, a population who arrive following precarious routes to Europe. By reclaiming the racialised Spanish term "manteros," Top Manta functions as a labor union, eco-friendly clothing brand, and pro-Black social movement. It provides tailoring apprenticeships so that migrants can regularise their status, sustainably produce clothing, and foster community resilience, while offering a central infrastructure to connect for legal and social support.
Campaigns offer sharp critique on the systemic discrimination faced by nearly half a million migrants in Spain: the recent campaign “Barcelona or Death” (Barça o Barzakh) works towards international solidarity and climate consciousness around the extractive fishing deals between Spain and Senegal, which have brewed a crisis of displacement. Top Manta also plays a crucial role in migrant-led coalitions, such as the ever-growing Regularisation Ya campaign to advocate at the highest national level for expanded migrant rights.