We Are Here To Stay: Organising Day (Glasgow)

Start: Saturday, October 19, 2024•10:00 AM

End: Saturday, October 19, 2024• 5:00 PM

We are Here To Stay: an organising day for disrupting migration systems and narratives

Calling people to join the Migrants’ Rights Network and Ubuntu Women Shelter to organise and build local resistance to the racist structures that keep our communities oppressed.

WHAT TO EXPECT

  • Reflective Discussions: Explore critical topics like racist and anti-migrant language, colonialism and systemic racism.
  • Personal Histories: Share and learn from our personal experiences of migration and colonisation. Together, we'll reflect on how these histories shape our present and our future.
  • Community Resistance: Come and hear poems of resistance from Ubuntu Women Shelter. Learn and discuss how people are building local resistance to racist laws and structures.
  • Network & Connect: Meet like-minded individuals, and activists who want to dismantle racist structures and systems locally.

AGENDA

  • Doors open at 9.45am. Please arrive on time to be seated for a prompt 10.15am start.

9.45- 10.15

Doors, registration and coffee

10.15-10:30

Welcome song and poetry reading for people talk about experiences with the Home Office

10:30-10:45

Craft session 1 (introduction)

10:45-12

‘Why are we here?’ workshop

This is a condensed version of a workshop we have held in London, examining the impact of colonialism in the migration journeys that brought/forced us here in the diaspora

Led by Dania (Ubuntu) and Fizza (MRN)

12-12:10

Break

12:10-1:10

Decolonising language - Words Matter workshop

Draws on our Words Matter campaign and Words Matter workshops that we have held for organisations. It focuses on understanding the impact of language when talking about migration and how it replicates systems of oppression, in order to switch to anti-oppression language.

Led by MRN

1:10-2:10

Lunch

2:10-3:40

Panel - Decolonising locally

Bringing together activists and researchers who work on different campaign issues to think about what decolonisation is/would/has look(ing/ed) like in the area, particularly through abolition (as opposed to reform) and in relation to migration.

Chaired by Dania (Ubuntu)

Speakers: Ronnie Tagwireyi, Nosheen Khwaja, Layla-Roxanne Hill

3:40-4

Craft session 2 (conclusion)

4pm-6pm

Networking

OTHER INFO

  • Free lunch and refreshments will be provided.
  • Limited travel subsidies are available on a first come first served basis.

WHO IS THIS EVENT FOR?

  • Everyone who wants to learn, engage and discuss dismantling systems of oppression.
  • We particularly want migrants, including refugees, Glaswegian activists, and more to join.
  • We will prioritise racialised and migrant, including refugee, attendees.

SPEAKERS

  • Ronnie Tagwireyi: Ronnie was born in Zimbabwe and came to the UK in 1991. His first claim for asylum was made in 2001 and he is still in the process today. He lives in Glasgow where he volunteers for several charities that concern themselves with asylum seekers and refugees. He sits on the Boards of The Scottish Refugee Council, Scottish Detainee Visitors and Refugee Sanctuary Scotland for which he is Chair of the Board of Trustees. He has a keen interest in football and is a huge fan of The Arsenal Football Club.
  • Nosheen Khwaja: Nosheen is a designer, artist, curator, tech, massage therapist and active listener working as co-ordinator at NUMbrella Lane drop-in, a sex worker support and advocacy space run by National Ugly Mugs. National Ugly Mugs organises to combat the discrimination, stigma, criminalisation and violence sex workers face.
    All areas of her life are fed and driven by her passion for social justice and desire to share knowledge with oppressed communities. In the course of both her personal and professional life she has supported and learned from migrants working in the sex industry; it is these experiences that inform her commitment to harm reduction, decriminalisation and an end to racist borders.
  • Layla-Roxanne Hill: Layla is a writer, curator and organiser, living in Scotland. Her work focuses on anti-colonial cultural contributions, and the way our conditions move us to act.
    She is active in the trade union movement, holding elected positions within the National Union of Journalists and the Scottish TUC. She is a member of the Glasgow Film Theatre board.

ORGANISERS

  • Migrants’ Rights Network is a UK charity that stands in solidarity with all migrants in their fights for rights and justice. We co-curate campaigns using anti-oppression practices to create transformational change, extending beyond the individual impact on migrants’ lives, to tackle oppression at its source.
  • Ubuntu Women Shelter is a Glasgow-based charity that provides unconditional practical support for destitute women and people of other marginalised genders who have no recourse to public funds and insecure immigration status in Scotland.

The entirety of the organising day will take place on the ground floor of Civic House. Ground floor: platform lift adjacent to the main entrance, 1 x accessible toilet, 1 x mixed block with 3 open cubicles, and assistance can also be provided by staff. Please note: there are no automatic/ assisted doors, or dedicated Blue Badge Parking. There is also no lift access to the first floor. Paid parking bays can be found on Civic St and adjoining roads.