NECESSITY NECESSITY

‘I’d like to put the making of this zine into context. I’ve been an immigrant since I was a child, having been forcibly displaced from my home country because of a conflict that’s spanned enough generations and seen enough violence that our people’s diaspora is larger than the total population of some European nation-states that have existed for centuries.

I am no longer that child, but as I fully embody the choices that I have made in the early years of my adulthood, the things that I have come to accept and embrace about myself, my background, my identity and my trauma, that child’s curiosity and wish to go home has resurfaced…”

To check more stories download our new zine ‘NECESSITY NECESSITY’, a report on queer diaspora and trans* voices.

We are double booked!

Leipzig and Geneva, here we come!

We are happy to announce that we are gonna be part of 2 info events where we can talk a bit more about this year’s projects and introduce our publication Autonomous Passage. The events are to happen simultaneously in both Leipzig and Geneva with local youth initiatives. The info sessions are a continuation of topics discussed on our youth gathering and also a chance to present our publication to all of you.

Due to the ongoing pandemic the events have reduced in-person participation, write us for registration. But heeey we are also gonna be streaming it live!

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ONLINE EVENT – Interactive Discussion on Collective Care practices

ONLINE EVENT – Interactive Discussion on Collective Care practices

In the newly adjusted ESC online format, volunteers have put together a participatory virtual program for the time until we can meet again.

Join us this coming Friday as we share and discuss the kinds of care practices we are creating and shaping in and for our communities during these difficult times. Based on the context where systemic violence continously affects the ways in which we exist, we imagine a society that actively builds and maintains alternative structures of care.
We would love to hear about the methods of care work you have organized in your respective communities and exchange ideas on ways we can support each other in sustainable ways.

15th January 2021 18.00 CET

Register at eyfa@eyfa.org to receive link.

European Solidarity Corps 2020/21 just started online!

European Solidarity Corps 2020/21 just started online!

The past year was a challenging year where we needed to reconsider and reshape the way we do and organize projects. In this spirit, we wanted to find a way to continue to support young volunteers as we have in the past with our ESC program. In light of the times, we decided to start our volunteering program for 2020/21 online with 3 young people from Ukraine and Belarus.
This is a new experience for us, as we have never hosted an online volunteering service and we hope that it can still be as beneficial to our volunteers.
Check our website for the info about great online activities run by our volunteers and who knows, maybe one day we will meet in person again?

More info about the programme here

Welcome to EYFA!

Launching the Skillsharing website

The Skillshare Portal is an easy-to-access portal to resource guides and workshop modules that are made by and for activist groups across Europe in topics like consensus and facilitation , strategy / anti-oppression and direct action. There is an amazing amount of knowledge and skills in activist networks around the world and this website hopes to make these as accessible as possible. There are resources and modules in various languages and from diverse contexts.

https://www.skillsharing.net

Ignite! An anti-racist toolkit

“The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.”–Audre Lorde

Ignite is a collection of texts and workshops to be used in formal and non-formal anti-racist education.  The materials are being translated into 5 languages (English, Romanian, Hungarian, Bulgarian and Romani).  The toolkit is now online at the following link: https://antiracist-toolkit.net

A key principle in the creation and selection of materials for this toolkit is the use of an anti-oppression framework, based on a structural and historical approach.  In Europe, much of the education (both formal and non-formal) about differences amongst people, discrimination and prejudice focus on the individual. It looks at the behaviour and attitudes of individual people, with the purpose of helping us to understand our differences and learn more about each other’s experiences and cultures. However, it tends to ignore or undervalue systems of power and long-term historical perspectives.

In creating this Toolkit, we wanted to explore how the concepts and ideas relate to a central-east European context (Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania in particular) and adapt them where required. Roma people and communities continue to experience widespread persecution and stigmatisation, a phenomenon which has been ingrained in European cultures for hundreds of years. Building awareness of the situation is not enough. Tolerance within individuals is not enough. We want to promote social change towards ending racism and Romaphobia!