Changemakers for Migration

The aim of the project is to transform the narrative surrounding migrants from one that portrays them as “takers” to be perceived as active changemakers. To transform the narrative around migration, Hello Europe believes that migrants should be at the center of the conversations, by empowering migrant leaders and enabling them to tell their stories.

In order to achieve our goal, we focus on three main areas:

1) Identify, Select and Support Changemakers: identify the most powerful leaders from these communities in Europe, gather them and co-create a learning and practice community to support their work.

2) Diversify the Ecosystem: connect changemakers from migrant background amongst themselves and with other key stakeholders to enrich the broader social innovation ecosystem.

3) Construct a New Narrative: make the stories of changemakers more visible to change the current narrative

CHARACTERISTICS OF A CHANGEMAKER FOR MIGRATION

A Changemaker for Migration is an active agent of social change with a personal connection to migration who has led a small or large-scale social initiative that contributes to improving the lives of other migrants.

The Person:

Leadership (Entrepreneur or Intrapreneur): changemaker with proven entrepreneurial leadership who lead, founded or contributed to an initiative.

Personal Connection: a passion driven by their personal connection and relation to migration. Changemaker with diverse racial or ethnic identities or from a migrant background.
Team Player: has a team and track record of team player.
Age: preferably between 18–35 years old.

Their Work

Innovation: novelty of their work.
Impact: established proof of concept at local or municipal level. Their work contributes to improving the lives of other migrants and/or ethnic minorities.
Relation to Migration, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion: their project has a connection to improving diversity, equity and inclusion either directly or indirectly.

We are searching for powerful changemakers with migrant background and from underrepresented communities all across Europe to invite and build together a strong community of Changemakers. If you or someone you know fits the description, please nominate him/her or yourself by filling out this short form or contact Ella Goncarova.

NOMINATE A CHANGEMAKER

MEET JANE OMA OKORO

Jane Oma Okoro is an enthusiastic Nigerian-born social entrepreneur and executive coach based in Madrid. In 2015, Jane founded Upside Africa, an organization that aims to inspire, empower, and promote African professionals and entrepreneurs, especially women and youth, both in the diaspora and in Africa. Through conferences, training, and coaching programmes, the organisation positions Africans everywhere to maximize their potential. Through her work, Jane aspires to support African migrants to become changemakers and contributing members of their resident countries in order to effectively influence their own communities.

Jane moved to the United Kingdom and, shortly after her parents passed away, she decided to move to Spain. While in Spain and looking to grow professionally, she encountered first-hand many of the obstacles that stem from the stereotypes created around African migrants. Jane met a lot of women of African-descent who were well qualified but found themselves either without a job or working in jobs they were very overqualified for. These encounters, together with her passion for Africa and Africans, led Jane to found Upside Africa. As of now, Upside Africa has trained around 355 entrepreneurs. She recently founded The Mother Eagle Mentoring Academy, a project through which she helps other women and youth to develop the skills, competencies, and mindsets that will help them to succeed. The MEMA, as it is known, currently has about 50 people who are being mentored by Jane from all over the world.

Jane is a member of the Impulse Team of Hello Europe’s Changemakers for Migration project in Spain. Jane thinks that the fact that many migrants are excluded from being a part of narrating their own experiences, needs, results, and impacts is one of the things that works against migration in any country. She believes that through Changemakers for Migration, Hello Europe has been very helpful and supportive in creating platforms where migrants and people from migrant and minority backgrounds are gradually becoming a part of the conversation and with their dignity intact. Jane encourages other social entrepreneurs from migrant background to break existing barriers and to believe themselves worthy of having a seat at the table. She would say to social entrepreneurs from migrant background that if you believe in yourself, “it is only a matter of time before the world sees you and makes room for you. If they don’t, it will be only a matter of time before you build your own table and the world will begin to ask you for an invitation.”

MEET HELENA MOÇO LOPES

Helena is a vibrant social entrepreneur based in Barcelona, Spain where she is the founding director of Abrazo Cultural, an organization aimed at sharing cultures and transforming the talents of refugees into intercultural learning opportunities. As a native of Brazil, she became involved in a series of activities targeting newcomers and migrants and refugees as part of Abraço Cultural, based in São Paulo, which was founded in 2014. She attributes her interest in migration and integration to her grandparents who fled Portugal and Spain’s dictatorships, respectively, as refugees and sought a better life and opportunities in Brazil. She relocated to Spain in 2015 to begin her postgraduate studies in business creation and management at the University of Barcelona. She credits these studies with giving her the knowledge and tools to create an organization from scratch.

With a strong business acumen and interest in social entrepreneurship, Helena along with other two founding directors, Hala Sofi from Morocco, and Micaela Villaverde from Argentina, scaled the Abraço Cultural initiative to Spain where it became the Hispanicized version, Abrazo Cultural, in 2017. Abrazo Cultural offers language courses, intercultural workshops, and workshops on music, dance, cooking, among others that are taught by 16 professors who are refugees and migrants. Helena says that the professors are the backbone of the organization, and most have been with the organization since its initiation. Abrazo Cultural works with local partners such as the Spanish Commission for Refugees (CEAR), Impact Hub, civil centers, and other NGOs.

Although Barcelona considers itself a welcoming city for refugees and migrants, she admits that there are still many who view migrants through a prejudiced lens, as individuals without agency and in constant need of assistance. In Spain, there has been a 50% increase in asylum requests every year since 2017 meaning this phenomenon cannot be ignored by the citizenry. Abrazo Cultural actively shows the city and its locals that migrants and refugees are more than a label: they are humans with experience and knowledge who want to contribute to the fabric of society.

The transition from face-to-face contact to remote work as a result of strict social distancing measures due to COVID-19 has been a challenge turned opportunity for Abrazo Cultural. This new online method has allowed them to expand their social impact. Their latest cooking classes have counted with the participation of individuals from Mexico, Canada, Brazil, and Colombia. Building on this momentum, Abrazo Cultural will continue their online courses once in-person contact is permitted because participation and engagement “is richer with people in other countries.”

Helena is a member of the Impulse Team of the Changemakers for Migration project, an initiative between Hello Europe and Hello Spain, and says that this project has been important in finding a support system and networking with other social entrepreneurs from a migrant background. She encourages entrepreneurs from a migrant background to get out of their comfort zone and network with as many people as possible.

MEET VALERIA MENESES

She has become a key player in setting up SPEAK in Aveiro, after experiencing its advantages first-hand upon moving to a small town near Leiria in Portugal. Leiria was home to the first central office of the SPEAK initiative, which was set up by Ashoka fellow Hugo Menino Aguiar to foster opportunities for the organic creation of local communities through language and cultural exchange. When Valeria heard that there was someone from Mexico who was teaching Spanish through SPEAK in Leiria, she immediately thought there could be something here for her too.

“I never realised that people would be so interested in what I had to say, and to learn about Mexico.”

Through a community of people who wanted to learn Spanish and learn about Mexican culture, she found that there was a lot more to give than she initially knew. With the community of people that were also learning Portuguese, she discovered that there were a lot of people facing the same challenges. Despite her smooth transition between home in Mexico and her new environment, it did not feel easy at all; the move from one country to another is difficult no matter the circumstances. Valeria felt lucky with the community she found in SPEAK, which is why it seemed only logical that when SPEAK launched its entrepreneurial programme – inviting social entrepreneurs to take the concept and scale it locally using the existing framework and means – she would take on the challenge of bringing it to her new place of living: Aveiro.

Drawing from her own experiences of arriving in a new country, she understood that a project like SPEAK could be the start of a valuable community in Aveiro. It proved difficult to find people to join the programme. The first event attracted some fellow Mexicans, but also a woman from Siberia, who had been in Aveiro for over ten years but still felt like a migrant in this place she had come to know so well. This was the validation Valeria needed to continue the project and find different routes to those people that would want to connect with other migrants in the city.

The country’s open perspective about migration and migrants provides a great place to live, but sometimes a lack of interest in discussing some issues that many migrants face in European countries. Valeria faced challenges of missing the social context of being European, lacking the background to set up such a project in a place still new to her. She had trouble finding the right organisations to collaborate with, until the continuous work led her to gain trust from existing organisations, possible partners and potential participants. The programme has grown enough to become a solid base, with a rooted community that are now ambassadors for SPEAK Aveiro. Putting everything towards this growing project, she will establish the association to become eligible for grants to become financially stable, and aim for greater visibility and sustainable partnerships, with the tremendous support of SPEAK international.

“Migration is such a complicated process because it comes with an abundance of challenges experienced by a lot of different people; this means there is no simple solution that works for everyone.”

The project is currently crowdfunding to become self-sufficient. You can support the project via their website.

MEET AHMAD SUFIAN BAYRAM

He is a social entrepreneur and focusses on and supports entrepreneurship in the MEA region and refugee entrepreneurs in Europe. He has become an expert on the drive behind start-ups and entrepreneurship in Syria and the challenges of those moving outside of this region and has recently published two open access books on this matter. His full-time job, however, is as a region manager for Techstars, through which he has supported many businesses and entrepreneurs in their development and growth within the named regions and beyond. According to Ahmad, a successful approach is not just about a good idea, but about the use of and access to supportive ecosystems.

Having grown up in a family of business and entrepreneurship, he always knew that he would start his own business one day. He did so with a start-up for customised gifts called ‘Joymakers’. As the business started to take shape, the beginning of the Syrian conflict marked the end of an era in which gift-giving might be considered a priority. Despite the unfortunate end to his company, Ahmad remained an entrepreneur at heart which is why he continued to pursue his dreams elsewhere.

Fast forward nine years, Ahmad found himself on a daily basis, helping those taking a course similar to his. Being in contact with entrepreneurial ecosystems around the world, from Silicon Valley to Berlin, and from Cape Town to Dubai, he came to realise that entrepreneurship cannot be isolated from a support ecosystem. One thing he learned is that start-up success has much more to do with finding a supportive environment than simply having a brilliant idea.

Through his work, he supports over a hundred Syrian businesses that are tech-enabled; these companies make use of technological means but are not necessarily focused on technology as a solution. With their work being facilitated through technology and mostly existing online, these businesses – both for-profit and non-profit – are easy to scale and/or move other countries or cities. The start-ups do not rely on staff working in one particular place but can connect online to work together. The programme provides training, mentorships, access to learning, as well as financial and legal advice. With his work, Ahmad helps those that are still in Syria and surrounding regions thrive.

“Most refugees believe that the problems they have are for them to solve.”

The heavy responsibility of conflict and the problems of access and discrimination in a new country, however, cannot be solely left up to the ones that flee their countries nor to the ones that choose to stay. Through his work and through the books he has written, Ahmad shares narratives that show a different side of Syria than the one portrayed in media and politics. Following his approach, challenging the prominent narratives around migration and migrants should start with fact-checking: what is really going on in conflict zones and what do people bring to their new countries of residence?

Ahmad Sufian Bayram has his own website on which you can find out more about his activities and projects.

MEET EHAB BADWI

Despite having studied mechanical engineering in Syria, Ehab got politically involved after leaving his home country around the start of the Syrian War. Over the past seven years, he has lived in many countries and found his way around in their societies until settling in Germany five years ago. Wanting to become more involved on a political level, he studied Political Sciences to deepen his knowledge and understanding of this field. Upon arrival in Germany, he learned the language and developed a network of people who could help him with his initiative to bring together and empower Syrian youth around the world. With his family in Syria and the limited possibilities to remain in touch on his mind, Ehab considered how he could play a role in building peace and how he could invite others to join him in this process.

“How can we invite young people to participate in the peace process?”

Through an online platform, the Syrian Youth Assembly invites young people to think about how they can make a difference. But this could not be achieved without providing education, as those that became part of the network could not consider peace building before having their immediate needs met first. Hence, with peacebuilding in mind, the platform provides online and local access to education and training. The training sets up participants with the skills and knowledge to train others within their own community, making the network’s efforts and resources sustainable and impactful beyond its current reach.

Besides the educational offers through partnering programmes, the Syrian Youth Assembly hosts a debating lab in which people with different political affiliations share and challenge each other’s views. Additionally, young people are invited to share their stories online where a section is dedicated to ‘voices of youth’. Through these many different facets, the project engages both Syrian young people in and outside of Syria. Despite the different challenges these young people face, there is one challenge they are facing together – building peace in Syria.

Young Syrians currently based in Europe deal with challenges similar to those Ehab has come across. Whilst they are not immediately allowed to vote in their new place of living, it is hard to find ways in which to engage with local and national politics and find out what you can do. Considering the next step of integration, both for him and for others, the political involvement seemed most urgent.

The Syrian Youth Assembly invites young people to start a dialogue with people with a different cultural or religious background to further understanding between groups and therefore help make Europe stronger. These contributions are appreciated and effective on a political level, as the Youth Assembly has become invested in challenging and changing current refugee policies. Working together with the UN and other large-scale organisations, the project allows for different voices to be heard in discussions about change and peace.

Currently, over 40,000 young people are part of the network worldwide. Through education, political engagement, a growing network and advocacy, the Syrian Youth Assembly aims to build a stronger society that is led by young people. Joining the Changemakers for Migration network, Ehab hopes to expand the advocacy of the involvement of young people in political decision-making and peace-building worldwide.

Picture by Antoine Tardy.

MEET ANILA NOOR

Anila Noor is a refugee-activist and independent researcher from Pakistan based in the Netherlands. She holds two Masters Degrees; an M.A. in Conflict and Peace Studies from Erasmus University in the Netherlands and an MSc from Allama Iqbal Open University in Pakistan specialising in Gender and Women Studies. Anila worked for more than 12 years in research institutions and NGOs in Pakistan with two focus areas: women’s rights and forced migration and integration policies.

Noor founded the New Women Connectors, a movement striving to mainstream the unheard voices of migrant and refugee women living across Europe. The movement also helps newcomer refugee women to lift their spirits and make something of it. She became involved in the subjects of forced migration and identity crises after going through the same experience.

Noor is also a member of the European Migrant Advisory Board (EMAB), an initiative by Urban Agenda EU. The Board is a self-led group of advisors with refugee and immigrant backgrounds, working together to increase the involvement of immigrants and refugees in different policy-making processes affecting their access to rights. The EMAB wants to contribute to building a positive narrative on immigration and asylum and ending all forms of discrimination. It stands for universal human rights, equality and equity for all groups, and meaningful political and social participation.

On June 2018, Anila Noor participated in the first-ever Global Summit of Refugees that took place in Geneva, bringing together more than 80 international refugee leaders to work on a long-term, inclusive and effective refugee policy.

Anila Noor is also the co-organiser of the European Summit of Refugees and Migrants, which takes place in Brussels on 4-6 May 2019.

MEET PRIYALI SUR

“Refugee women are the new breed of feminists. These women on the move who navigate life threatening conditions day and night, are tenacious, resilient and optimistic. Their optimism doesn’t come from ignorance but from a relentless self-belief” — Priyali Sur at a TEDx talk in Washington, D.C. in 2016

A migrant journalist from India and a women’s rights activist, Sur had just returned from a reporting trip from Greece after interviewing refugee women. As a new migrant in the United States and a survivor of intimate-partner violence herself, Sur knew how difficult it was to break stereotypical narratives about migrant women and survivors of violence. She wanted the world to see refugee women not merely as victims fleeing violence, but as resilient women thriving and giving back to their new communities. Three years later, her vision now a reality, and called The Azadi Project is enabling refugee women to take back control of their own stories.

Azadi means freedom in Urdu, Hindi and Farsi. The Project’s mission is to train refugee and migrant women in digital economy job skills such as multimedia storytelling and video production. By providing refugee women with the skills to produce their own stories, Azadi empowers them to take control of their own narrative and break negative public stereotypes about them. The idea is to use technology as an enabler to produce and share digital content online, transcending borders. The new-age digital skills provided by Azadi empower refugees to work remotely, an asset especially in places with high unemployment, like Greece.

After the workshop, Azadi also connects its participants to local internships and trainings which create livelihood opportunities and demonstrates the capacity of refugee and migrant women to local communities. This enhances their agency and reduces their vulnerability to smugglers and traffickers.

Nour Omran, a student of Azadi’s first graduating class in Athens is a Palestinian refugee and joined the workshop because she wanted to start her own YouTube channel to share stories of other refugee women like herself. Nour in her Azadi video talks about her strength and determination to help other refugees like her. She says that if it wasn’t for Azadi she would never have learnt to film or started her own YouTube channel.

Azadi plans to hold its next workshop in Lesvos this year where it hopes to work with refugee women who have endured terrible trauma and yet remain resilient.

You can support their efforts by donating here.