Category: tactics

resource list for refugees, migrants, asylum seekers and more

#NoBanNoWall #LetThemIn

This is a list of resources for migrants and refugees in the UK and Europe, and related organisations, originally crowd-sourced and storified on twitter by the redoubtable Daniel Trilling (@trillingual) and various excellent people in his timeline. It seems like a helpful moment to put the information into a user-friendly form. Some are charities, some are activist non-profits: quite apart from all the people who desperately need help, the official laws, techniques and institutions being developed to police borders and harm refugees and migrants will be quickly be exported to the rest of society, the poor and the vulnerable in particular, the establishment of border-patrol politics at all levels of daily life.

Order is alphabetic, in sections: UK-wide first, then UK local, then a scattering of Europe-wide orgs and some US ones too. Some are self-explanatory, some I’ve given a very brief description. It’s nowhere near exhaustive, obviously — just a start. I’ll probably give it a page of its own shortly — this is just my blog after all — but it seemed the common-sense place to start. If you can, donate or give your time and energy. And circulate this.

UK NATIONAL

Against Borders for Children, against border regimes within schools @Schools_ABC

Association of Visitors to Immigrant Detainees @AVIDdetention 

Asylum Aid, @AsylumAid

Asylum Support Appeals Project helps people appeal their cases, get housing, avoid destitution   

Bail for Immigration Detainees

Christian/Muslim refugee initiatives, local and national

City of Sanctuary network (UK & Ireland), encouraging communities to welcome refugees, branches nationwide (see below for a few of them) @cityofsanctuary

Counterpoints Arts, engaging with refugee and grant experiences @CounterArts

Detention Action supports people in UK immigration detention @DetentionAction

Doctors of the World: campaigning for refugees in UK to access healthcare, @DOTW_UK 

Help Refugees UK @HelpRefugeesUK 

Homes Not Borders @Homesnotborders

Homes for Syrians @homesforsyrians 

Hope for the Young (formerly OMID International) @hopefortheyoung

Hope not Hate @hopenothate

Housing Rights (not just migrants and refugees)

How to ask your MP to expand UK refugee resettlement 

Legal action for women 

Lesbians and Gays Support the Migrants

Lobby your MP

Lorraine Ayensu Refugee Arts fund @LARAfund

Médecin Sans Frontières @MSF, @MSF_Sea, @MSF_uk 

Medical Justice: health rights for UK immigration detainees @MedicalJustice

Migrants’ Law Project offers strategic litigation against immigration detention @MigrantsLawProj

Migrant Voice, for migrant voices to be heard in the UK media @MigrantVoiceUK 

Movement for Justice By Any Means Necessary @followMFJ 

Music in Detention @MIDdetention

PlatformaArts and Refugee Network @PlatformaArts 

Red Cross UK refugee support @britishredcross

Refugee Action @RefugeeAction

Refugees at Home, seeking hosts for refugees and asylum seekers in the UK @RefugeesAtHome,

Refugee Council @refugeecouncil 

Safe Passage works to bring vulnerable refugees in Europe to Britain @Safepassageuk

UK Lesbian and Gay Immigration Group @uklgig

We Are Chatterbox: language and cultural training service by refugees @wearechatterbox

Women for Refugee Women campaigns (Yarl’s Wood and elsewhere) @4refugeewomen

Yarl’s Wood Befrienders @YWBefrienders 

UK LOCAL

A useful map for local links @RefugeeWeek

London:

Croydon and NW London: 
Young Roots: supporting young refugees and asylum seekers @weareyoungroots

East London:
Refugee and Migrant Forum of Essex and London @RAMFELcharity

Greenwich:
Greenwich Migrant Hub @GreenwichMH

Hackney:
Akwaaba social centre for asylum seekers, refugees and other migrants @akwaabahackney

Hackney Migrant Centre 

Haringey:
Haringey Migrant Support Centre haringeymsc.org

Islington:
Islington Centre for Refugees and Migrants: English lessons, support, workshops, hot meals @IslingtonCentre

Lewisham:
Action for Refugees in Lewisham @Afril 

North East London:
North East London Migrant Action: people left destitute by local council policies @NELMAcampaigns

Walthamstow:
Walthamstow Migrants’ Action Group 

London-wide:
English for Action: English lessons in London @EFALondon

New North London Synagogue Drop-In Centre for Destitute Asylum Seekers

Praxis: advice, support, meeting place for migrants and refugees

Refugee Connection: helping refugees and Londoners get to know one another @RefConnection

SOAS detainee support

Support network for people stranded in London by the #MuslimBan

Bradford: 
Bradford City of Sanctuary @bradfordCoS

Brighton, Sussex and Surrey: 
Brighton Voices in Exile @brightonvoices

Brighton Migrant Solidarity @BriMigSol

Bristol: 
Bristol Refugee Rights @bristolrefugeer

Huddersfield:
Destitute Asylum Seekers Huddersfield 

Hull:
Hull Help for Refugees @hullforrefugees

Leeds: 
Leeds Asylum Seekers Support Network @lassnleeds 

Leeds No Borders @leedsnoborders 

Positive Action for Refugees and Asylum Seekers @PAFRAS_Leeds 

Leicester: 
After 18, a resource for migrants, refugees and asylum seekers entering adulthood @after18uk

Liverpool and Merseyside: 
Asylum Link @asylumlink

Manchester:
Boaz Trust, serving destitute asylum seekers

Manchester Refugee Support Network 

Newcastle:
Action Foundation provides housing and language support @actionFdn

Notts:
Nottingham and Nottinghamshire Refugee Forum @NNRF1

Oxford: 
Asylum Welcome @asylumwelcome

Reading: 
Reading Refugee Support Group

South Yorkshire:
South Yorkshire Migrants and Asylum Action Group @SYMAAG

Sheffield:
Assist Sheffield: challenging asylum destitution

Tyneside:
Newcastle Law Centre @NewcastleLC 
North of England Refugee Service @NERSRefugee
West End Refugee Service

York:
Refugee Action York @refactyork

NORTHERN IRELAND: 
Housing4All campaigns against destitution in Belfast @h4allni

Northern Ireland Community of Refugees & Asylum Seekers @NICRAScharity (refugee-led)

Horn of Africa People’s Aid Northern Ireland @HAPANI1 (refugee-led)

SCOTLAND:

Edinburgh: 
Edinburgh City of Sanctuary @edinCoS

Welcoming Edinburgh @WelcomingEdi

Refugee Action Scotland: delivering aid to migrants freezing in the Balkans: @re_act_scotland

Glasgow: 
Refuweegee: “we’re all fae somewhere”

Glasgow Unity Centre, which monitors and challenges deportations: @unitycentreglas

Positive Action: accommodation for destitute refugees @PositiveActionH

WALES:

Swansea:
Unity in Diversity: helping refugees and asylum seekers @uidswansea 

REPUBLIC OF IRELAND:
Migrant Rights Centre Ireland @MigrantRightsIR

Contact your TD to ask them to oppose Trump’s ban 

EUROPE
European Council of Refugees and Exiles @ecre

Welcome 2 Europe: information and contact lists country by country

Advice on Individual Rights in Europe @AIRECentre 

Refugee Community Kitchen: food for migrants and the homeless in Dunkirk, Paris, Calais, London @RefugeeCkitchen

Refugee Rights Data Project @refugeedata

Red Cross EU @RedCrossEU

Caritas, “the helping hand of the Catholic Church” @iamcaritas

Food for migrants in the Balkans HERE and HERE

Connect Refugee: Phone credit for refugees in Europe, vital lifeline, sometimes literally
 

UNITED STATES

American Civil Liberties Union @ACLU

Southern Poverty Law Centre @splcenter

straight girls who identify as “rotten women” (腐女)

the meat of the story is a bit grim, but this fact^^^ isn’t: “”Irony is the glory of slaves” is the quotation Seth likes. See also Nüshu, the same story from a very different angle

via jamie kenny, yr go-to source for the chinese underbelly

kerze

Over at Popular, Tom’s reached 1997 and Elton and Lady Di — his essay is of course excellent, and so are many of the (currently) 120+responses, especially Phil Sandifer’s, which is all about Blake and a haunted political unconcious. I’ve been superbusy all week, so my (very late, very long) comment is way down the pack; so I’m reposting it here also. Continue reading “kerze”

“shtick fur-balls revisited” (= proposed titles in my head so far)

virtual space issue zeroIt was called Virtual Space and there was just one issue, “issue zero: place-kicks”. We made less than 20 copies, mostly by hunting round town for a photocopier with an A2 bed. It was an experiment, a mockup for a magazine, and it had no date appearing anywhere on its pages. (But it was early 1989, I’d just quit NME and wasn’t on-staff yet at The Wire.) We were serious: we went looking for funding. The other of the two being designer Paul Elliman, who’d just left The Wire. (Note to self: I haven’t seen Paul in an age and must call him up.) Continue reading ““shtick fur-balls revisited” (= proposed titles in my head so far)”

model this

“Wittgenstein was insisting that a proposition and that which it describes must have the same ‘logical form’, the same ‘logical multiplicity’. Sraffa made a gesture, familiar to Neapolitans as meaning something like disgust or contempt, of brushing the underneath of his chin with an outward sweep of the finger-tips of one hand. And he asked: ‘What is the logical form of that?'”
(Norman Malcolm, Ludwig Wittgenstein: A Memoir, pp. 58–59)

Faintly recall from student days long ago that N.Malcolm was hard work and unrewarding as a philosopher (trans.: I was a confused and unsatisfactory philosophy student, esp.as far as Anglo-Am Analytical etc goes). But this is a good story, and — whether or not LW drew the correct conclusions at length — Sraffa’s intervention was strong, and Wittgenstein was right to be impressed and unsettled. I’m tempted to argue that music — all music, from Blobby to Boulez — is making much the same gesture to all other intellectual activity: here’s something you can’t do. That might be too strong — other things are always going on in music (including rapprochement, or attempts at same), and of course the various forces and layers never aggregate to a single decisive intent or content anyway — but it’s definitely an element I value in music, and don’t see well grasped in its discussion.

none dare call it skewed

Quick unedited notes the morning after (on just 4 hrs sleep)

1: the road-testing of the citizens united decision has not developed entirely to the 1%’s advantage
2: TRUMPBOT SMASH *trumpbot falls over on face in puddle of someone else’s vomit*
3: no one ever got rich betting against the continued stupidity of the US pundit class, but — and usually like emerson I am pro creative-transformative intuition and against the soulless bead-counting technocrat where’er he be — but Team Silver has surely helped ding the the current pundit-layer’s crappy jalopy, in a way that a mere unpredicted shock dem win would not have done
4: ratfuck report (relevant internal repug warfare): Continue reading “none dare call it skewed”

platonism and anger management

Entirely unsurprisingly, the word ‘troll’ now has a politicised range of meanings—all the way from anonymous internet bully to subtly provocative dialectician, with a fractally wriggly continuum linking these extremes—and the comment this is a response to (a) made it reasonably clear which meaning one s/he had in mind* and thus (b) deserved a better (or at least more self-aware) answer than “By using the word X you can only be saying Y about me and I know myself well enough to say this is false.” Of course dsquared was trolling here — and it’s not as if Farrell is historically that good at identifying the motivations of the people he deems trolls by his own over-simplified (which is to say self-exculpatory) definition. The revealed fact of the faultline is an indication that people on both sides are uneasily (=angrily) aware that they too exist within contradiction: “just a lot less so than those OTHER deluded clowns,” the more twerpish partisans on both sides are busy telling themselves.

*And yes, s/he later disappointingly backed away from a good strong usage…

our morals and theirs

His politics is what he does. What he says — his “line” — is merely how he gets his hand on someone’s wallet, or up someone’s skirt. Ideologues and intellectuals — left, right, centre, other — are often (actually not so) strangely boneheaded about this. They’ve invested so much in mastering specific verbal arguments, big technical shibboleth words and metrics, that they can’t bear to cede how very much easier they are to play as a result.