The Sabir Festival

SOLIDAR and a delegation of members were present at the 10th edition of the Sabir festival in Rome, in October.

Sabir is the festival of Mediterranean cultures, named after a lingua franca mixing Arabic, French, Italian, Greek and Spanish spoken in North Africa and the Levant. It was founded in 2014, one year after the Lampedusa tragedy of October 2013, with the purpose of rebuilding a common Mediterranean language – such as the Sabir language – as a metaphor of a common initiative from civil society and grassroots organisations. It is co-organised yearly by SOLIDAR members ARCI and CGIL, along with Italian organisations ACLI, Caritas Italiana, ASGI and Carta di Roma.

Sabir Festival has represented an open space where relationships can be planted and cultivated through debates and arts. It offers moments of sociability, debate and in-depth analysis, with the idea to promote the Mediterranean area as a space of solidarity, migratory justice, and transnational exchange. The presence of civil society representatives, grassroots organisations, individuals with a migrant background, academia, journalists, local communities and municipalities, from the two shores of the Mediterranean and beyond enriches the discussion, with the view to discuss and shape policy, practices and narrative of the future on mobility and protection.

The Festival turned 10 this year. A SOLIDAR delegation was present at this year’s Sabir Festival, taking place from 10th to 12th October in Rome, Italy. This year’s main focus has been the wind of racism blowing over the old continent and how this has influenced electoral outcomes in many European countries this year as well as in the European elections themselves. In all these places, failing governments have been looking for scapegoats to blame for problems derivated essentially from the dismantling of welfare States and social protection systems. Marginalised and vulnerable groups make an easy scapegoat, especially refugees and migrants, whose voice is rarely heard in politics and policymaking.

2024 is also marking a turn in European Union approach to migration with externalisation of borders and asylum management taking an ever more important role. The EU Pact on Migration and Asylum signalled an increased attempt to shift responsibility for refugees to third countries and recent electoral results and political declarations, by both national and EU leaders, only confirm this tendency.

Last, but not least, the Festival also provided the space to discuss events in the Levant and in particular Israel’s offensive on Palestine and Lebanon, as well as the criminalisation of solidarity with Palestine taking place in Europe. From this emerged reflections on the intersection of Europe’s repressive migration policies, shrinking civic space and colonial legacy. SOLIDAR along with organisations in Sabir Festival continues to fight these repressive policies, and EU leadership’s failure to hold Member States accountable.

Training on fundraising from grantmaking entities – win more grants!

The day before the Festival, SOLIDAR organised a training on fundraising from grantmaking entities, directed at civil society organisations and collectives working to advance the rights of refugees and other migrants, and promoting inclusion. We were happy to host Katarina Bartovičová from Slovak Fundraising Centre for an insightful training session with SOLIDAR members and partners.

Key topics covered included: an overview of the European philanthropic landscape; essentials for crafting impactful grant applications; how to get noticed by ‘invitation-only’ donors; fundraising tips for migrant- and refugee-led organisations; and elements of reflection on how to secure core funding, the best form of funding for non-profits to carry out their alliance-building and advocacy work.

All participants are taking this valuable knowledge back to our organisations to diversify funding and strengthen sustainability.

From SOLIDAR, were present representatives from Diásporas (Portugal), Centre for Peace Studies (Croatia), Initiative for Development and Cooperation (Serbia), Movimiento por la Paz – MPDL (Spain), Migration Consortium (Poland), AWO (Germany), Casa do Brasil/Rede Sem Fronteiras (Portugal), Olof Palme International Centre (Sweden) and Povod (Slovenia), Nexus (Italy) as well as representatives from SOLIDAR Secretariat.

Both these activities were organized in the framework of SOLIDAR’s programme ”Realising Social Europe for All and With All”, supported by the European Union, through the EaSI strand of the ESF+ programme.