Can we do better than the tyranny of benevolence?

During her recent keynote at #32C3 (Europe's largest hacker conference), Somalian-born Fatuma Musa Afrah shared her experiences of when she was displaced and had to find refuge.. twice. First in Kenya then in Germany. In it, Fatuma speaks of herself as a „newcomer“ and argues that change is a collective responsibility. Taken together, I believe her points are a good foundation for exploring how we can move beyond current #fails in the reception and integration of people seeking to build new lives in Europe.

In response to the sudden growth in the number of asylum seekers coming to Europe, many citizens are taking matters into their hands. You may have noticed that there is a deluge of hackathons, conferences, campaigns and workshops on the subject.

Many of these initiatives are well intended, volunteer based and useful on a local small scale, but I am concerned that they may be contributing towards making the situation worse in the long run. Not just for newcomers but everyone involved.

What’s working

Many grassroots groups are facilitating the passage/stay of the new arrivals, by giving them practical information, access to medical assistance, legal aid, dorms/shelter, food, translators, the internet, etc.

They're also creating and maintaining a line of communication with the local administrations and the local communities, facilitating the creation of better-targeted services and attempting to defuse unnecessary and potentially dangerous tensions amongst those citizens that see the newcomers as a threat.

What's not working

Rather than acknowledge and build on a good job, many of the new initiatives either duplicate or compete with existing grassroots and solidarity initiatives for attention and resources.

In some cases, these efforts become almost an excuse to postpone more permanent solutions on a political level.

Few efforts focus on the needs of people in communities that welcome newcomers. In doing this, it is easy to miss the needs of individuals who are struggling with public services and bureaucratic processes that were already not performing well, and are ill-equipped to deal with increased demand.

Trailblazers, not beneficiaries

 With the influx of newcomers, we have a great, once in a lifetime opportunity to revitalise stagnating countries in which the futures of our young are held hostage by aging elites. The reason being that people struggling to rebuild their lives as a consequence of economic, social-ecological or political crisis hold the keys to successful societal adaptation as Alberto points out in this post:

"Transition zones is where most edgeryders live. It is there, we believe, you will find the key to successful societal adaptation. Why? Simple: because only there do you find both the incentives and the capacity to drive change. In the center, the élites have little incentive to adapt – they are not on the firing line. In the periphery, the dispossessed have little capacity – staying afloat is a full-time job. But on the edge it makes complete sense to try long-range, radical stuff out.

Unfortunately, many well-meaning efforts employ charity-based approaches that position people currently in the asylum process as “weak” recipients of our benevolence... rather than potential allies in tackling systemic crises. These narratives pigeonhole people now seeking asylum as costs to the system. They also risk fueling mechanisms of exclusion, ensuring the newcomers will never be treated as equals in our communities- with all the rights and responsibilities that this entails...

We need to change the narrative if we are to make use of the new opportunities offered by newcomers. From beneficiaries to trailblazers.

Coming together to unFail reception and integration of newcomers 

Whether they are older or new on the field, many concerned individuals and initiatives are often struggling with similar issues in different parts of the world. Together we could make a difference by coming together for an honest, open and transnational discussion to make sense of the situation. Then we can look at practical ways in which we can build sustainable futures together by helping to improve existing initiatives, and where needed, create new ones.

Whoever you are, welcome to join us for our open event that takes place on February 25-28, 2016 in Brussels.  It is called Living on The Edge and brings together people from different walks of life to learn from one another’s experiences...and hopefully build new solutions to shared problems.

LOTE5's program is open; it is built by the participants who propose sessions around things they would like to learn, teach or build together with others. Some examples:

• Ezio Manzini, one of the world's most famous service designers, is leading a reflexive design exercise on how migrants-residents collaboration can produce social values. 
• U. N. innovation specialist Milica Begovic is doing a presentation on how new financing models are breaking the development sector. 
• Security expert (and science fiction writer) Meredith Patterson is introducing us to the arcana of debt interoperability.  
• Data scientist Guy Melançon is setting up Masters of Networks, a hackathon-like event where we hack networks.  
• Bob Palmer, Europe's top cultural policy expert, will reveal how and why most cultural policies fail. Expect gory details. To top it all up, Ida Leone, Ilaria D'Auria and Roxana Bedrule will explain how you can still fail even by succeeding. Exhibit A: Matera, Italy, crowned European Capital of Culture 2019.  Exhibit B: Bucharest, Romania, shortlisted for European Capital of Culture 2021. 
• Open data protagonist Mohamed Hegazy will be building solutions in response Cairo's failure to plan its public transport network. 
• John Coate, the legendary WELL community manager, will be teaching us how to cope with meltdowns in communities.  
• Marek Hudon Professor at the Solvay Brussels School of Economics and Management (ULB), will go through failures in finance and glocal bottlenecks in complementary currencies, . 
• Me , Co-Founder of Edgeryders, will present cases of abject failure – and a path to unfailure – in responding to the so-called “refugee crisis”.

Don’t worry if your English is not good, participants come from many different countries, and someone will be able to help with interpretation if you need it. Also, we know the line up of speakers can seem intimidating, but don't let that stop you from participating. LOTE is a friendly event where everyone is welcome, and every contribution is valued.

Do you want to support this initiative?

Here are four easy things you can do to make it even better!

1. Share this post with your friends, colleagues and others who might be interested.
2. Sign up for the #countonme email digest with community news headlines for #lote5. Just sign up here: http://bit.ly/1YE1Pyc
3. Reach out to an initiative, organisation, group, place or network that is doing relevant work and invite them to join us at #lote5: http://bit.ly/1YFSwO1

For more information: 

About the event: Look at the event website, Write to noemi@edgeryders.eu, or just visit us at the Edgeryders office on 75 Rue Pierre Decoster in Brussels anytime. 

About how to partner with/sponsor this initiative: Write to nadia@edgeryders.eu.