Snapshots From The Borders is a 3-year project co-funded by the European Union (EuropeAid DEAR budget line), run by 35 partners, border Local Authorities and Civil Society organisations.

Snapshots From The Borders aims to improve the critical understanding of European, national and local decision makers and of public opinion about global interdependencies determining migration flows towards European borders, in the perspective of reaching SDGs targets, especially SDG 1, 5, 10 11 and 16. Specifically, the project intends to strengthen a new horizontal, active network among cities directly facing migration flows at EU borders, as a way to promote more effective policy coherence at all levels (European, national, local).

The heart of the project is “voice and experiences (snapshots) from the borders” and their broadest diffusion among European citizens. The voice of the real protagonists will travel from periphery to the center, at national and European level, where the decisions are taken. The project aims to inform European citizens that migration is a complex and multidimensional phenomenon and a political issue which needs efforts and concrete actions taken by people and organization/network at all level of society. Borders’ direct perspective and engagement is an added value for raising awareness, sharing knowledge, encouraging participation and showing citizens that they have an important role to play. By bringing voices and effective solutions from the borders where migration is lived directly, people will be more informed and aware of the determinants and actions and they will become protagonists in calling for a fair world. Once people are aware of the dimension, implication, causes and solutions, they will seek a change of attitude in terms of support for civil society.

In other words, Snapshots from the borders implements a bottom-up approach in terms of capacity building, advocacy and network building, where local decision making and stakeholders involvement is valued as able to identify real needs and goals in the migration and development debate.

Finally, the Action intends to contribute to a new European narrative which re-localizes the development discourse in the Mediterranean and at other European borders: this includes a shift towards a more coherent human rights-based approach to migration and development; new territorial policies aimed at creating decent work and sustainable production and consumption patterns; transnational and decentralized cooperation fostering strong linkages among communities; and migrants as a new human development actors participating actively in local communities at the social, economic and political levels.

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Project Leader: Comune di Lampedusa e Linosa

Municipality of Lampedusa & Linosa (ITALY) – LEAD PARTNER
Autonomous Province of Bolzano – South Tyrol (ITALY)
Comune di Pesaro (ITALY)
Regione Puglia (ITALY)
Amref Health Africa (ITALY)
Associazione Africa e Mediterraneo (ITALY)
Cabildo Insular De Tenerife (SPAIN)
Fundacion Africana Para La Medicina Y La Investigacion Amref Flying Doctors (SPAIN)
Ville de Grande-Synthe (FRANCE)
Eine Welt Netzwerk Thüringen e. V. (GERMANY)
Marktgemeinde Straß in Steiermark (AUSTRIA)
Stadtgemeinde Traiskirchen (AUSTRIA)
Südwind – Verein für Entwicklungspolitik und globale Gerechtigkeit (AUSTRIA)
Municipality of Maribor (SLOVENIA)
Municipality of Črnomelj (SLOVENIA)
IPRES – Istituto Pugliese di Ricerche Economiche e Sociali (ITALY)

ISCOMET Institute for Ethnic and Regional Studies (SLOVENIA)
Syklonagysfalu Onkormaniza (HUNGARY)
Cromo Közhasznú Alapítvány Foundation (HUNGARY)
Teritorial Administrative Unit Constanta Municipality (ROMANIA)
Novapolis Association – Center of Analysis and Initiatives for Development Burgas Municipality (ROMANIA)
Balkan Institute for Labour and Social Policy (BULGARIA)
Company of Reasearch, Education, Innovation and Development of North Aegean Region S.A. – ELORIS S.A. (GREECE)
North Aegean Region (GREECE)
Municipality of Rhodes (GREECE)
Agios Athanasios Municipality (CYPRUS)
Marsa Local Council (MALTA)
Koperazzjoni Internazzjonali (MALTA)
Local Democracy Agency Mostar (BOSNIA & HERZEGOVINA)
Insamlingsstiftelsen Harald Edelstam (SWEDEN)

Sign here: Make October 3rd the European Day of Memory!

The newly elected EU Institutions (Parliament, European Commission and Council)

This petition is run by Snapshots From the Borders

Petition text

Make October 3rd the European Day of Memory and Welcome and ensure migration policies keep humanity and solidarity at their core while promoting responsibility sharing across Europe.

The 3rd October is a symbolic date, reminiscent of the day when, in 2013, 368 people including children, women and men lost their lives in a shipwreck off the coast of Lampedusa.

Why is this important?

We ask citizens to join the border territories launching this petition in being part of a solidarity movement by signing and bringing the message of humanity and solidarity to the center of the EU institutions.

Share responsibility!
Together with the Border Territories launching this petition we want to spread our voices and call on all national and EU policy makers to fulfill their responsibilities to implement coherent migration policies. The needs and conditions of local communities hosting arriving migrants need support from the European level – a support that stands in solidarity with all human beings — local citizens and migrants.

Stay human!
People fleeing war and persecution very often have no safe and regular alternatives to reach Europe. Only by making these solutions available urgently, people will not be forced to resort to traffickers and to risk their lives. By bringing voices and effective solutions from the border territories where migration is lived directly, we call for a fairer world.

Be part of solidarity movement!
Join us, sign the petition and let’s change together bringing stories and voices from the borders at the core of EU.

Make the 3rd October as the European Day of Memory and Welcome!
In 2016 the Italian Senate established by law that the date of October 3rd would be the Italian Day of Memory and Welcome (this initiative was held and promoted thanks to Comitato 3 Ottobre, born with this specific goal), to be celebrated every year to remember and commemorate all the victims of immigration and to promote awareness and solidarity initiatives. It is time we introduce this day in entire Europe.

From October 3, 2013 to today, 17,900 migrants and refugees have died or are missing in the Mediterranean Sea. While 2016 was the most lethal year, with 5,096 people who lost their lives in a desperate attempt to find salvation in Europe. In 2018 one out of every 18 people who crossed the Mediterranean heading to Europe lost his/her live: an unacceptable human cost and an unacceptable human statistic.

The 3rd of October will be a day to commemorate and reflect on these human losses; a day where wrong policies confront our individual and European values which should always stand higher. A day to remember the past, to correct the present and to envision our European future of solidarity and respect of all human lives.

***

“Make the 3rd October the European Day of Memory and Welcome!” is the demand of the campaign NO MORE BRICKS IN THE WALL! implemented by Snapshots from the Borders project, that links border towns and Islands facing migration at borders entrance.

In recent years, borders have taken on an immense significance. Throughout the world they have shifted, been constructed and dismantled, impacting on life on thousands of people, re-shaping virtual and material spaces. They are no longer exist only at the edge of territory, marking the point where it ends, but have been transported into the middle of political space, in the Mediterranean like anywhere else. In doing so, borders are deconstructed and reorganised according to the unceasing re-articulation of international power relations, national sovereignties, market technologies and systems of measurement and control on a global scale.

This is particularly apparent today in Europe: proliferation, mobility, and deep metamorphosis of borders are key features of actually existing processes of globalisation and modernity.

According to this, our snapshots from the borders aim to tell the human, material and political implications that borders and mobility policies means to the territories and people involved on both sides: of those who migrate and those who live in countries interested by migration flux, by giving relevance to those films reporting the experience through the voices of migrants and the witness of citizens and organizations working on reception policies.

The selection focused on the impact of the issue in European countries, except for two films that highlight what happen before the European borders. Furthermore, in the films proposed, the Border is decomposed in its spatial and material implications; in its social implications and the impact on the territories; in its etical and political dimension, questioning european citizenship; through stories that report the daily struggle of people living in a foreign country; in the emergency event depicted by media.

October 3 marks the sixth anniversary of what is being described as one of the most significant massacres of Mediterranean migrants: a ship carrying more than 500 people sank just a few meters off the coast of Lampedusa. 368 people (including children, women and men) lost their lives. only 155 were rescued.

Snapshots’ work for Capital Events has involved 19 Border Local Authorities and 37 civil society associations and organizations from the 28 countries of the European Union.

Lampedusa will be the “Capital of Europe”, with a series of events in 29 other European capitals and cities in support of the new resolution, which aims to ask the European Union institutions to Make 3rd October the European Day of Memory.

In each city, various activities and initiatives took place (such as cultural events, documentaries, discussions, exhibitions, flash-mobs, concerts, etc.) organized to inform citizens about the various issues and dimensions related to the phenomenon of migration. .

CAPITAL EVENTS LIST

CAPITAL EVENT, ATHENS 3.10.2019 @ Technopolis

VISIT WITH POPE FRANCIS, VATICAN 10.09.2020

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