Stand Up! Speak Out! Solidarity Knows No Borders Training Series: A Toolkit to Resist the Hostile Environment
Over the course of the last decade, migrant communities have faced an increasingly restrictive system which has embedded immigration controls across society, including into education, housing, and healthcare. But we won’t let our public services become a tool of hostile immigration enforcement. It’s time to stand up and speak out.
As members of the Solidarity Knows No Borders Community, Migrants Organise is proud to be part of Stand Up! Speak Out!, a training series developed to equip public sector workers with the practical tools and resources they need to act in solidarity with migrants and refugees. The series will run online from March – June 2023, and features over 20 seminars run by different organisations. You can sign up and browse the full schedule here.
What is Solidarity Knows No Borders? Solidarity Knows No Borders (SKNB) is a community of migrant organisations, groups and individuals, working in solidarity, to end hostility and racism against migrants and refugees. Together we are demanding dignity and justice for all. The Stand Up! Speak Out! series has been organised by members of the Solidarity Knows No Borders community’s political education working group (including Migrants Organise, Social Workers Without Borders, and Positive Action For Refugees & Asylum Seekers) which seeks to raise awareness of the hostile environment in the public sector.
What is this series about? Social workers, GPs, local authority officers, and others often play a crucial role in the community to safeguard migrants and asylum seekers, but many of them are unaware of Hostile Environment or how to resist it day to day.
Throughout the series there will be a wide range of topics designed to support people within work places to understand the current immigration system and its impact on our communities.
Topics will include: safeguarding, family reunion, No Recourse to Public Funds, NHS Charging, legal aid, and more, as well as sessions one the role of colonialism in our current immigration system and ways we can organise for power. The sessions will be lead by migrant justice organisers, campaigners from organisations in our community, caseworkers and academics, all sharing insight on how we can resist the hostile environment together. The sessions are open to anyone who wants to learn more about supporting people who have moved to this country to make a better life.