We’re still feeling the power of the 2025 Solidarity Knows No Borders Summit: a space for grassroots migrant justice organisers from around the UK to dream together, listen radically, and commit to long-term, deep organising in our communities. In this blog our National Organiser, Maymuna Osman, reflects on the weekend.
Photography by Sophie Le Roux.
On October 11th and 12th over 90 organisers from approximately 40 groups and organisations involved in Solidarity Knows No Borders came together in London to share our organising learnings, discuss what needs doing to face the challenges ahead, map out our connections, revisit our principles as a community of resistance and share food and music in the spirit of solidarity.
“We are standing at a crossroads: Between a country that chooses fear, and a country that chooses freedom. Between cruelty as government policy — and solidarity as strategy.”
Zrinka Bralo, Migrants Organise Chief Executive.
The World We Are In
In the dark times we are in, where we are experiencing the largest resurgence of facism since the 20th century, and with the grief that we are all carrying, it is especially important for us to make time to be together and connect; we know that we are only as strong as the relationships we hold with one another. And when we connect our stories, struggles and resources, we can build the world we want to win.
Marzena, Co-Director of POMOC, organiser and communicator summarised the opposing realities of hope and grief that we find ourselves faced with as organisers trying to build a powerful movement for migrant justice. There is the loss and suffering ‘[that is not] rapid or sudden or natural, but slow and meticulous and calculated. By design. It has been exploited by the state, by corporations, and by political parties across the political spectrum in service to building an ever-intensifying climate of fear and repression.”
Alongside grief, hope also exists, and there was so much hope in the room at the Solidarity Knows No Borders National Summit. Communities are resisting and building alternative systems of care and radical love everyday.
We heard from organiser Ghassan, Reviving Gaza, and how they resist by providing material sustenance through mutual aid. Mimi from Voice of Domestic Workers (VDW) also shared how their organising among migrant and domestic workers embodies care, culture and courage and how these become tools of resistance.
Through performance, storytelling and mutual aid, Mimi works with members of VDW to move from invisibility to leadership. Voice of Domestic Workers just made history as the first Domestic Workers’ union branch (Unite) in the UK.
From protests at reporting centres to building alliances in Sheffield, Boucka Koffi, founder of the Voice of Voiceless Immigration Detainees (VVIDY), spoke of how organising shows how people seeking protection are leading the fight for dignity. Boucka’s organising reframes refugees not as victims but as leaders in a collective struggle for justice, or in Boucka’s words – Freedom Seekers.
It is against this backdrop of hope and grief that we came together to commemorate our comrade Pious (may he rest in Power), organiser at VVIDY and Assist Sheffield and active member of Solidarity Knows No Borders, and so many others in Palestine and across the world, plan actions and revisit the principles that underpin the movement we are trying to build.
Power Grows Through Relationships, Not Institutions
It is no secret that we do not have all the answers of how we face the challenges confronting us (if we did, we would be winning by now) but what we do know is that we are only as strong as the relationships we create with each other.
We know that when we share our organising stories, embed care into our collective organising and hold onto the hope that the world we want to create is possible through practicing solidarity with one another in our everyday actions and lives, we can win.
Hope Is A Discipline, Not A Feeling
Zrinka, Chief Executive of Migrants Organise, also reminded us that we have no choice but to ‘face the fear and organise. [We must] build power that can’t be deported, detained or divided. Hope is not going to cut it on its own. Hope must be organised. We are standing at a crossroads: Between a country that chooses fear, and a country that chooses freedom. Between cruelty as government policy — and solidarity as strategy.’
Solidarity As Strategy
The Solidarity Knows No Borders National Summit demonstrated that when we build connections across regions, borders and campaigns we can build something better. We learned from each other that:
- Hope is grounded in real organising, not rhetoric.
- How power is built through relationships and collective action.
- And lots of practical inspiration for taking organising back into our own communities.
We are living in a moment where solidarity cannot just be a slogan and there can be no bystanders. As a member of the Solidarity Knows No Borders Community beautifully summarised: “when we practice solidarity we can fix the cracks in the sky.”
If you would like to join us in action and solidarity, contact maymuna@migrantsorganise.org
Solidarity Knows No Borders is a community of migrant organisations, groups and individuals, organising in solidarity to end hostility and racism against migrants and refugees.
