Many people will remember 2024 as the year of the far right riots- of hate and hostility from all sides.
But, it was also the year that communities came together to outnumber the fascists on the streets and to stop the government’s inhumane Rwanda deportations. We refused to be silenced.
In this context, there really are no small victories. This year has shown us, that when we come together, speak out, take action, we have power. Here is a snapshot of our year:
The Community Programme is Migrant Organise’s frontline support and advice service, offering ongoing holistic support and safe spaces for people who are navigating hostile immigration and asylum policies.
This year, we opened our arms to over a thousand people in total – including direct support to 835 members, as well as assistance to 269 dependents, such as partners, children and other family members.
We began a new outreach programme in four different hotels sites housing people seeking asylum. People living inside these de facto detention sites arrive in our country looking for protection but are treated with hostility. We organised advice and rights based sessions for people to access asylum and destitution support and advice in immigration matters.
90% of Migrants Organise members are homeless or live in insecure housing, for example asylum support accommodation, temporary accommodation, shelters, sofa surfing. This reflects the challenging nature of our case work.
This year, we were also proud to establish support aimed at welcoming Palestinian families rebuilding their lives in the UK, in partnership with British Palestinian Committee.
CREATING SAFE SPACES & HOLISTIC ACTIVITIES
The hostile environment is designed to isolate and weaken us, so the joy of coming together is a vital part of community solidarity and hopeful action.
Each week we ran 16 different holistic and creative activities each for 200 of our members. Our members feedback about how much these activities mean to them, that being together and making new friendships is a powerful way to build connections.
From Walking Groups, Storytelling, Football, Dance & Movement, Art and Chat, Film Club, Creative Writing, Sewing Group, English classes, Cooking and a Women’s Group- read more about how our activities encourage friendship and nourishment.
MIGRANTS ORGANISE CREATES – A NIGHT OF HOPE
In February, our members proudly launched an incredible creative exhibition: “Hope” at the Chelsea Theatre, London. The exhibition was a stunning exploration of freedom, family, memory, future dreams, resilience and community.
We had a beautiful and moving evening showcasing performance and art- check out the opening night reel.
We’re delighted to feature this work on our brand new creative website, Migrants Organise Creates – which also showcases previous creative work from our 2021 New Dreams Exhibition.
Our members will update this platform with their creative work at various points. These creative pieces are so valuable – sharing their full humanity beyond a label.
CELEBRATIONS: RESILIENCE FESTIVAL
During Refugee Week and beyond we ran our annual Resilience Festival from June to July. The idea for the “Resilience Festival” emerged in 2021 after the profound challenges and loss experienced during the pandemic. Since then it has become a month long festival to look after each other and experience joy as we process the trauma and grief caused by the hostile environment.
We organised live music events, lively picnics, group walks, gardening sessions, painting, art and creative writing sessions, storytelling performances and writing competitions.
For our members, staff, volunteers and supporters the joy of creating space, activity, food and music is a vital reminder of the better world we’re building together.
MIGRANTS MENTAL CAPACITY ADVOCACY (MMCA)
Over the years, Migrants Organise has been pioneering in sharing its knowledge as a front line service working with people with complex mental health conditions and trauma. Years ago, after identifying an absence of safeguarding for individuals lacking capacity to engage with the immigration and asylum system we created a network of legal professionals and advocates and trained over 25 ‘Litigation Friends’ to support the rights and safety of vulnerable people.
This year, the Migrants Mental Capacity Advocacy Project secured a significant win; after years of pressure, alongside our network including Wilsons and Doughty Street Chambers, we welcomed the important news that the Immigration Tribunal have finally issued guidance on the use of ‘litigation friends’.
This is an important step in acknowledging and protecting life changing support and safeguarding systems for extremely vulnerable people. Through conferences, training and resource creation we also continued to build knowledge across the migrant and disability rights sectors, building a shared space for innovation and infrastructures of support.
In 2024, through our campaigning and organising work we developed actions to challenge the core of this government’s anti-migrant hostile environment, launched resources and training to build grassroots solidarity, and challenged the racist media narratives that seek to dehumanise us.
Our campaign for a stronger and more sustainable legal aid system for all migrants has grown quickly this year. And we’ve had wins!
In November, the government finally committed to its first funding increase of civil legal aid in almost 30 years: an increase of £20million. This fee uplift is not a revolution, but it’s a step in the right direction- read our response here.
This win has come after years of sustained organising with over 100 groups and organisations across the country – legal aid practitioners, migrant support charities, immigration advisers, researchers and community groups – who have all been impacted in some way by growing challenges in accessing, or in providing, legal advice and representation.
Throughout this, we’ve continued building the power and visibility of those in our own community to organise and speak out about how the legal aid system is failing migrants.
This year alone we’ve convened many organising meetings, published a set of public demands, contributed to new research on the costs of not funding legal aid, and worked with allies across all areas of civil legal aid to pressure MPs to support us in calling for better access to justice for all. In November, we shared our demands with MPs in an event in Parliament– watch our members Nanou and Moses speak out here.
We’re celebrating the increase in legal aid funding today, but tomorrow and in the years ahead know that we have a much longer way to go to get access to justice for all migrants.The fight continues!
Patients Not Passports (PNP) is a movement of campaigners, health care workers and patients organising to end racist immigration controls in the NHS.
This year, alongside our partners Medact and local PNP groups, we launched a new interactive digital toolkit designed to inform, educate and provide practical steps on accessing healthcare.
This is information packed resource to assist both patients who have been charged for their healthcare, as well as for health workers to support.
Local chapters of the PNP network hosted Toolkit launch events in Swansea and Sheffield. The toolkit coincided with our regular workshops and sessions designed to build expertise and knowledge, such as our ‘Know your Rights’ training sessions with migrants groups, community organisations and allies. We focused on community meetings in East London, as a way of building deep relationships with the local community, healthcare workers, advocates and local power holders.
We prioritised spaces for our collective learning and reflection, by participating in the “Organising for Power” training series organised by the incredible organiser Jane McAlevey. This helped the Patients Not Passports groups to embed impactful organising principles into their practices. Watch this space!
INDIVIDUAL JUSTICE CAMPAIGNS
Over the years, the Patients Not Passports campaign has supported individuals who who are being charged extortionate fees just for receiving healthcare- from Justice for Simba to Justice for Omisha.
2024 was a memorable year for the Justice for Omisha campaign a campaign that began after baby Omisha was charged over £76,000 for cancer treatment. Over 11,000 people have now signed Omisha’s petition and the campaign has received huge support from the public.
We were delighted for the campaign to be awarded the Sheila McKechnie Foundation David and Goliath award.
Justice for Omisha grows in strength- from organising outreach sessions and public events the family and their East London community are reaching out to make sure no one has to go through what they did.
When we organise together, we can resist hostile border controls and ensure the NHS is available to all who need it.
ORGANISING FOR HOUSING JUSTICE
For many Migrants Organise members, the accommodation provided by the Home Office and contractors like Clearsprings is unsanitary, dehumanising and unlivable. That’s why we have been organising fortnightly meetings for members to share experiences and plant the seeds for practical solidarity and collective action.
Informed by our Housing Group, Migrants Organise played a leading role in launching the #Homes4All, a cross-sector campaign coalition to build collective power towards our vision of a world where everyone can live in dignity. The coalition brings together organisations from the migrant, housing and homelessness sectors to tackle the root causes of the housing crisis that affects us all.
Together, we have already pushed back against the ‘British homes for british people’ narrative put out by the former government this year and plan to keep fighting for homes for everyone in 2025.
We also ran collective learning sessions with sector organisations, like Shelter, and connected the lived experience of our members to academics and researchers. In 2023 we developed toolkits and resources to fight the Bibby Barge- so it was welcome news this year, to hear that the Barge will now be closed. It’s time for communities not cages.
Abolish Reporting is a national campaign calling for a world built on the principles of care, not surveillance.
This year we learned that, following two years of coordinated pressure and scrutiny from Abolish Reporting and others, the government opted to drop its multimillion pound contract with Capita. This contract was to carry out 24/7 GPS surveillance of migrants, a brutal practice which has been shown to be unlawful.
After months of campaigning against Capita’s contract we celebrated this news, but of course a change in contract will not lead to the end of the hostile environment. Capita was replaced by Serco as the contract holder, and so we got to work again.
Along with Bail for Immigration Detainees and Women for Refugee Women we crashed Serco’s Annual General Meeting with a clear message: “it’s time to stop profiting from cruel anti-migrant policies.”
Our message took over Serco’s social media and reaching thousands of people. We also took action with BLM to raise awareness of Serco’s hypocritical sponsorship of the Black Talent Awards.
In May, Abolish Reporting campaigners and local groups sprung to action, as the government charged on with the inhumane Rwanda Deportations. Outside immigration reporting sites we shared signposting resources and rights based information to keep at risk people who as safe as possible.
In August, at the height of the far-right riots, Abolish Reporting groups mobilised and united the support of 137 migrant rights organisations to demand an immediate suspension to people’s ‘reporting conditions’. With our allies, Right to Remain we shared resources around various reporting immigration centres in London, Sheffield, Liverpool and Manchester.
Alongside this, we submitted evidence to the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration inspection into Home Office contact management practices, sharing our experiences and calling for an end to immigration reporting.
Finally, we to build knowledge and political education hosted a 5-week reading group on Resisting Borders and Technologies of Violence for a cohort of 30 organisers.
The launch event featured book co-editors Mizue Aizeki and Matt Mahmoudi in conversation with award winning author and migrant rights campaigner Harsha Walia. Thank you to Haymarket Books and Books Against Borders for their partnership for the reading group.
SOLIDARITY KNOWS NO BORDERS
Since the inception of our grassroots organising programme in 2014, we have focused on movement building strategies to connect organisers from across the country. We’ve organised five national two-day summits and several issue-based and regional summits. These have been important for building connections and trust amongst grassroots migrant and refugee organisers from around the country.
Over the years, this has evolved into the Solidarity Knows No Borders community- a national community and movement for migrant justice.
In 2024, with Migrants and Culture and Common Knowledge we launched the Solidarity Know No Borders new website to map the presence of solidarity groups and share new resources like the Organising Toolkit.
With our allies Social Workers Without Borders and Positive Action for Refugees and Asylum Seekers we organised the Stand Up, Speak Out- a webinar series for public sector workers to resist the hostile environment.
Over 1000 people attended the online sessions- which included 24 webinars on topics like ‘asylum system 101’; everyday borders- understanding the hostile environment; rights information to access healthcare; skills to fight for housing justice; ideas for collective care; climate justice and migrant justice.
BUILDING REGIONAL POWER!
This year, our regional Yorkshire organising programme focused on responsive actions against the Rwanda deportations and reached over 6000 people through talks and workshops at 33 events and summits – such as the Freedom Seekers Festival.
During the horrific attack on a Rotherham hotel housing people seeking asylum, our Yorkshire organiser connected with local groups on the ground to organise solidarity across the local areas.
NARRATIVE CHANGE: SHARING OUR STORY
Storytelling to share realities, develop counter narratives and to resist dominant dehumanising media frames whilst unapologetically celebrating our wins are all building blocks in building narrative power.
This year we our work featured in BBC, Open Democracy, Big Issue, Dazed in over 30 media pieces. We spoke at theatre and cultural events, panel discussion and developed materials to share our message. Our members spoke out on podcasts and on our social media and web platforms.
And finally, we wrote a chapter in “A World Without Racism: Building Antiracist Futures! “ – an incredible opportunity to take time to reflect and write down our principles, lessons and strategies for organising.
None of this would be possible without you – our members, 90+ volunteers, supporters, allies and wider community. Thank you for acting in solidarity with us- for being there, taking action, donating, speaking out and amplifying our work.
2025 will be a crucial moment to build unity and momentum. We need you to continue to to act with us in resisting hate and hostility. We refuse to allow this hostility and cruelty to be normalised. Our communities will resist together, until we win!
