The congress in 30 snapshots

The international congress “Shipwrecked. Rethinking migration and asylum in Europe” brought together more than 130 experts from all over the world, who had the chance to attend various workshops, panel discussions, networking meetings and side events. Below you can find out how the activities of the congress looked like.

The workshops

The first of the six workshops addressed a survival issue for many of the organisations working on migration and asylum: fundraising.
Vesna Jusup and Paulina Gruda from the European Center for Digital Action focused on community fundraising and gave very useful tips.
The workshop on the potential of municipalities was organised by the Brussels Office of the Heinrich Böll Foundation and facilitated by Lea Rau from the Berlin Governance Platform.
While migration and asylum policies are mostly discussed on EU and national level, actual implementation is done at local level, where we often have room for flexibility.
Another critical issue faced by both people on the move and those in solidarity with them is their increasing criminalisation in Europe.
No wonder the workshop facilitated by Nina Walch was attended by so many people working in the field.
How can complex and technical legal texts be turned into clear messages and reach both, the general public and decision-makers?
In our workshop on advocacy and campaign, facilitator Stavros Papageorgopoulos from ECRE gave the floor to many people who contributed with their expertise.
People with minority SOGIESC are often forced to flee their country due to persecution and criminalization. As asylum seekers they are particularly vulnerable to discrimination as well as psychological, physical and sexual violence.
The workshop, organised by the Paris Office of the Heinrich Böll Foundation, was facilitated by Matthieu Tardis and offered a transnational perspective.
Sara Prestianni from EuroMed Rights facilitated a workshop on the intersection of externalisation policies and technology.
The workshop was very well attended as new technologies such as artificial intelligence and how they are used for border surveillance are a topic of increasing concern all over Europe.

The photo exhibition opening

The first day of the conference was concluded at Toss Gallery with the opening of the exhibition "1000 dreams: stories from the LGBT+ refugee experience", which is part of the wider project "1000 dreams. About refugees, by refugees", by Witness Change.
The exhibition consists of 27 photographs and interviews with people from refugee backgrounds in Europe, who talk about their dreams and strengths, as LGBTQ+ people on the move often have to overcome a double stigma.
Three of the project's storytellers were also present at the opening. From left: Quinn Gapp, storyteller; William Lansbury, photographer and projects director of Witness Change; Neda Noraie-Kia, head of Migration Policy Europe, Heinrich Böll Foundation; Zahra Mojahed, storyteller; Elsayed Elsehemy Abdelhamid, storyteller.
The photo exhibition was also one of our participations in Europride 2024, which took place during that time in Thessaloniki, and it remained open from 24 to 30 June 2024.

The public conference

The second day of the congress started with a public conference in the "Olympion" cinema ("Pavlos Zannas" hall), which was highly attended.
The first part of the conference dealt with the depiction and analysis of the current political situation in Europe and was entitled "Democracy under pressure - Rule of Law challenged and Europe's shift to the right".
Through Q&A, but also through the use of digital tools such as Mentimeter, the audience was able to actively participate in the discussion.
The discussion was moderated by Michalis Goudis, director of the Heinrich Böll Foundation, Thessaloniki Office (left). The panel included (from left) Petra Molnar, lawyer and anthropologist specializing in border technologies, Jon Henley, Guardian's Europe correspondent, Pegah Edalatian, deputy chairwoman of Alliance 90/The Greens, and Laurent Standaert, director of the Green European Foundation.
The second panel, entitled "Ways ahead - How to counter right-wing populism and safeguard Human Rights and the Rule of Law in Europe", focused more on ways to react effectively to the situation. It was moderated by Neda Noraie-Kia, head of Migration Policy Europe, Heinrich Böll Foundation (left) and included (from left) Milena Zajovic, psychologist, journalist, and human rights defender, Tiago da Cruz Bartholo, coordinator of the civil society consortium From the Sea to the City, and Stefanos Loukopoulos, co-founder and director of the transparency & democracy watchdog organization Vouliwatch.
Parasto Hakim, founder of SRAK Underground Schools, which provide education to women and girls in Afghanistan, joined online.

The Agora of Ideas

After the end of the conference, the participants moved to the beautiful and atmospheric space of "Ypsilon" for the ‘Agora of Ideas’.
There they were able to spend more than two hours mingling, discussing and networking.
They also had the opportunity to present in an informal yet direct way their individual work or the work of their organisations.
Among them our colleagues Simon Ilse and Siavash Eshghi presented the newly established Global Unit for Human Security of the Heinrich Böll Foundation, based in Vienna.

The open-air concert

The closing event of the congress was a street concert featuring Greek traditional songs.
The concert took place in Mavili Square, in a neighbourhood in the center of Thessaloniki historically inhabited at large by refugees and migrants.
The songs were performed by Vaso Vasiliadou, a well-known and loved singer of Thessaloniki, and her musicians.
The concert quickly turned into a big folk party for congress’ participants and locals alike.

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