Requests
Published: 1 Jun 2016
Odysseus Academic Network seeks donations for refugees to participate in annual summer school
The Odysseus Academic Network – a network of experts in European immigration and asylum law from across Europe and coordinated by the Université libre de Bruxelles – plans to welcome refugee students to its 16th annual Summer School, which will take place in Brussels 4-15 July 2016. The summer school will allow refugee participants to gain knowledge in European immigration and asylum law and further their education, which may have been interrupted by their forced departure. The time they will spend in Brussels will also aid their integration into Europe by allowing them to discover the European capital and European institutions. A crowdfunding campaign has been launched and the Odysseus Network encourages everyone to donate a little to this initiative!
Coalition of organisations seeking attorneys to join an effort to create a resource guide on Mexican persecution and asylum claims in the US
A number of US-based organizations, including the Latin America Working Group, the Washington Office on Latin America, and the Kino Border Initiative, are concerned about the barriers to seeking asylum and low grant rates for Mexicans fleeing persecution. These groups would like to create a resource guide to support Mexican asylum claims. To assist with the project, they are looking for attorneys with experience in those claims who would be willing to share updated country context resources and information on expert witnesses. If anyone is interested in a higher level of involvement in the project, they are also interested in someone who can consult with legal analysis on particular social groups and questions of internal displacement. If you would like to support this project, please contact Joanna Williams.
Canadian sponsorship organisation seeks experts to provide information on challenges facing Darfur refugees
Many villages Sponsorship group is working to assist the resettlement of a Darfurian refugee currently residing in Amman, Jordan in Canada, and requests that persons with experience and expertise in issues affecting Darfur refugees submit one or two page letters that could be provided to the Canadian Embassy in Amman. The four areas which need to be addressed are:
- Challenges that Darfurians face in obtaining Sudanese passports and the inconsistencies of the Sudanese passport system.
- That despite the fact that Darfurians are discriminated against for employment, they are still allowed to attend university, albeit at their peril (e.g. violent threats against Darfurian students).
- Challenges between translating from Arabic-Sudanese (Arabic spoken in Western Darfur) into “Jordanian-Arabic” or “Modern-Arabic” AND oral colloquial Sudanese-Arabic into standardised written Arabic.
- The impact that trauma and recalling specific traumatic effects can have on the quality of a refugee’s interview (e.g. memory issues, etc.)
If there is anything you can do to help us, or if you have any questions/concerns please contact “Many Villages Sponsorship Group”.
Volunteer translators needed to translate user guide to UK immigration and asylum systems
This is a call-out for volunteers to help Right to Remain translate the Right to Remain Toolkit, a user-friendly guide to the UK asylum and immigration system. We are looking to put together a group of volunteers to translate key sections of the Toolkit. The group will work collectively, sometimes meeting up but also using online collaboration tools.
Currently the languages we are aiming for are Arabic, Tigrinya, Kurdish Sorani, Farsi, Pashto. If you think you can help, please get in touch via email.
Stateless person affected by detention in UK sought for research project
The European Network on Statelessness is conducting research on the detention of stateless persons in the UK as part of a wider project addressing this issue across Europe.
We are looking for stateless persons (or persons at risk of statelessness) who previously spent time or are currently in detention. We are contacting you in the hope that you may be aware of affected persons who might be interested to participate in the research? Confidentiality and anonymity of participants will of course be respected.
The referral/screening form contains more information about the research and how to refer someone. If you can help, we would be grateful if this could be completed and returned by the 19th of May 2016 for interviews to take place at the end of May or the second week of June. The referral form has been designed for use also by non-legal specialists so do please also share it with any other organisations or individuals who you think might be able to assist. You can download the referral form here.
Please reply directly to Katia Bianchini.
Many thanks and we look forward to hearing from you,
Katia Bianchini (ENS research consultant)
Crowdsourcing effort to support travel grants to migration conference in Poznan, Poland
International Association of the Study of Forced Migration (IASFM) seeks donations to support travel for graduate students and other scholars to IASFM meeting in Poznan. Interest in attending the sixth conference of IASFM is strong and wide among scholars and practitioners throughout the world, but resources are needed to realize the potential to engage these new voices.
Please consider donating USD 5.00 (or more) for the programme of international travel grants.
A USD 5.00 donation from each IASFM member will make a significant impact on facilitating the participation of so many people from whom we all can learn and be inspired. Here is a link to our crowdsourcing website.