MIG@NET, Transnational digital networks, migration and gender Deliverable 11: “Migrant digitalities and Germinal social movements in three arrival cities: Mobile commons transforming the urban questions?”
created for and by minors and young people who call themselves Youth without borders (Jugendliche ohne Grenzen – JoG). As Sanja a JoG activist stated, “Youth without borders is a movement that has been fighting for the rights of refugees in Germany since 2005. The majority of its activists are young people living in Germany with a "Duldung" - exceptional permit to remain. Inspired by the blogging movement in Iran we had a vision of a blogging platform that would display the perspectives, thoughts and opinions of young refugees living in Germany under precarious legal status. Besides the obvious aim of providing an opportunity for them to network and voice their thoughts, there are many further possibilities that could ensue from such a project.” (Sanja, Interview 2012, Germany, Hamburg) Sanja is a digital education activist and was part of the transnational group of Greek German and Turkish Border-activists that carried out the No Border Camp Lesvos and the research trip in 2010 in the Border Greek-Turkish Region mentioned above. Anais member of GDA reconstruct the Connection between the No Border transnational Networking in the Lesvos Camp and the emergence of a new activist spaces in Istanbul “It was after the No Border Camp in Lesvos. It was/ just because, we had a platform of oppositional of resistance against IMF meeting in Istanbul just after it was, yes, the summer of Lesvos Camp and just after the meeting was in October 7,8,9, I think, of October. So we had 2, 3 month of resistance platform and etc. and had working groups and during this direnistanbul there were not really let's say on migration working group, but then we had our first demonstration in front of Kumkapi detention centre for example and after the end of direnistanbul we started to have meetings and. okay it lasted 4, 5 month to first of all to understand the issue, what we want to do, who we are and/ not 5 month but 3, 4 month/ and then we came with this campaign against detention and there we started. (…) Okay, the connection came because, okay actually when we created GDA there was no organised groups of migrants here. Of course we don't want to be representatives, we are solidarity movement we are not a migrant movement. We have 7 goals. First of all is to create a visibility of the issue here in Turkey, because no one knows about migration issue and no one cares really apart from Ministry of Interior, UNHCR and a few NGOs. So this is our first aims. The second one is to bring the migration issue to the left agenda. The other aim is of course to be in solidarity with migrants in a way but we have a lot of talk about, should we have a kind of a centre, cultural centre where we could provide something. Some of us say no because the need here is so huge we would turn into an NGO without having the capacity, we don't have the budget. And then the Young Refugees Union was created, I think they spoke to you the way they created it. So I was in contact with them because they are at the same time my clients and I work with them. So we decided let's support these kids and we had a meeting with them to see what we can do. First thing was a solidarity party because they were really needed money. They were in the situation that they couldn't pay their anymore. So we had a solidarity party with them and then we had this conference that basically came from them. 78