On Friday, 2nd of march we finally do another justParty with some great local DJ’s (line-up follows).

We start the evening at 19:00 with a delicious vegan dinner.

After that we have an info-evening about live without papers with some experts on the issue. We’ll talk about everyday life experiences, political context and ways to resist oppression and exploitation. Music will start at 22:00

Among the speakers are Kolar, a teacher at Radboud and volunteer at Stichting Gast , Peter from Geen kind aan de kant and Justin, who recently graduated for theater in Rotterdam and has worked on the issue in his work as a film-maker.

The party and the food are against donation. All donations will go to a family in need and Harmanli Refugee Camp Play School (Bulgaria).

We invite all Nijmegenaars to announce Nijmegen as a Sanctuary City, a city that does not cooperate with deporting people who have no home, a city that develops means and networks for (informal) interaction, regardless of background, origin, culture, etc. Trust and acceptance are features that can be learned in healthy and safe social environments. We think this city should be safe for all!

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Nijmegen Green and Sanctuary for ALL!

Dear friends,

Have you ever imagined your life without a passport? Can you then rent a house or open a bank account? Will you have access to social services in the city? What will happen when walking into a police officer? Do you have a safe place to sleep tonight? Your life will certainly be very complicated without documentation, and over longer periods of time structural denial of existence by the state can become devastating.

The privilige of documentation, or not having any, does not change the need and desire to belong to a community, a surrounding of people, like in the beautiful city of Nijmegen. We would hereby like to announce Nijmegen as a sanctuary city, a city that is green and free for ALL!

In the past two years we, justPeople, have been engaged with people who often arrived here with hardly any means and faced immediate constrains to participate fully in our society. As always, we’d like to emphasize the need for mutual social support, freedom of movement, and full participation and equal rights to everyone. To elevate the life situation of the disenfranchised as much as possible and raise awareness of how we can create a safe city for all, we would like to cordially invite you to a benefit party. In addition to the party, we will have a dinner and info evening which will focus on the situation of undocumented migrants (link soon).

As a collective, we’ve experienced many things together, often beautiful and at times heartbreaking. We are a young collective with people from all over the world, and such kind of diversity has come with a lot of freedom and discovery. We have never valued any kind of documentation and we feel mutual trust is at the core of any social interaction and movement. Nonetheless, we have experienced that the people who are not accepted by our state, are suffering from bureaucratic oppression and violence, in complex ways that originates from the vicious circle of being denied formal existence. This state of being can literally last years and it is devastating to some, if not all of those who are victims to such denial.

This year our city has been announced the Green Capital of Europe. We feel environment and sustainability are of utmost importance in our current age. We all feel love for this city and its people. However, we would also like to emphasize there are many people still in need, people who disappear under the radar because they have no documents. According to the UN, the amount of climate migrants is expected to double in the next 20 years. That’s why supporting each other, no matter where we come from, will only be more important in the future. Many people are coming from countries and regions where we have taken resources from throughout the last centuries, and who are now again victim to excessive pollution through consumption. All in all, we do not only want to live in an environmentally friendly society, but also to encourage a sustainable supportive and mutual network for everyone and more urgently for undocumented people.

We would like to announce Nijmegen as a Sanctuary City, a city that does not cooperate with deporting people who have no home, a city that develops means and networks for (informal) interaction, regardless of background, origin, culture, etc. Trust and acceptance are features that can be learned in healthy and safe social environments. We think this city should be safe for all!

The party is free on a basis of donation. All donations will go to an undocumented Armenian family and Harmanli Refugee Camp Play School (Bulgaria).

Much love, justPeople collective ♥