Workshop by Bino Byansi Byakuleka, Sharon Otoo & Florian Fischer
Friday, December 4th 2015, 17:00 – 21:00
Venue: w_orten & meer, Hasenheide 73, 10967 Berlin-Kreuzberg (U7 Südstern)
Reflection and empowerment hour
If you are involved in any kind of refugee (self-) organization, supporter structures or charity organizations we would like to invite you to our empowerment workshop.
There is a lot to be done and the current situation of refugees in Germany and Europe requires us to rethink political strategies and use the power we have appropriately.
The current wave of welcoming culture is very important in order to show alternatives to the racist hatred that is getting stronger each day. At the same time this wave comes exactly at the time when our refugee movement has become very weak to almost not-existing anymore. The so-called civil society chooses to be in the helping position instead of supporting self organized refugee resistance. This is a step back, it puts us back to being the helped supposedly passive object while the helpers are becoming a new lobby.
How can we deal with these developments? How can we come out of the watching, the passive position, back into the acting, pro-active, demanding one? How to organize protest against the horrible law changes which is not (much) considered by helpers and white charity?
Our workshop will serve as a platform for us refugees and supporters but also as space to reach those we cannot reach through street protests. Such as Voters, Donors/ Funders, Neighbors, Academics, and so on politically, socially/ culturally and economically.
This will be done in rounds/cycles due to the number of issues which have to be discussed. For instance what are the roles of refugees and supporters, what are boundaries between refugees and supporters, what does solidarity mean? It means helping, providing humanitarian aid, charitable work or empowering, is it solidarity vs charity? And many others.
Therefore in our first round we will focus much on these questions by reflecting on our personalities in relation to the struggle, as the starting point of the decolonization process for humanity.
The empowerment workshop also builds up a framework to organise continuous readings which should take place every second week.
Contact:
Bino Byansi Byakuleka
Tel. 0176 803 00 714
Web: www.wearebornfreeberlin.de
eMail: wearebornfree@posteo.de
Sharon Otoo
eMail: sharon.otoo@raa-berlin.de
Web: www.raa-berlin.de
