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Migrant Artists Mutual Aid

humanity is the only status

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NCADC Training in Liverpool

We are so excited to be hosting a NCADC training in Liverpool, it is going to be at the Florrie.
NCADC campaigning training, Liverpool

Wednesday 11 December 2013

10am to 4pm

The Florence Institute Trust Limited
377 Mill Street, Liverpool
L8 4RF

This training, hosted by Migrant Artists’ Mutual Aid, is open to all but booking is essential.

If you would like to book a place, please email lisa@ncadc.org.uk

The training is free, but a donation towards lunch from waged participants is requested.

NCADC training across the UK

Next up on our training tour of the UK is Liverpool! Throughout 2012 and 2013, NCADC has been visiting local groups already involved in campaigning, or wanting to find out more. We have been running workshops on understanding the asylum/immigration status and campaigning for the right to remain, in Huddersfield, Manchester, Leeds, Oxford, Glasgow, Belfast and coming up before the end of the year we’ll be travelling to Newcastle, Liverpool and Nottingham. In the new year, we’ll be making our way to Leicester.

If you’ve missed us, don’t worry, we’ll be coming back! If you’re interested in NCADC coming to deliver training to your group/network, please get in touch.

Our training in Newcastle on 16 November is already fully booked. We are now taking bookings for our training in Liverpool on Wednesday 11 December.

Toolkit training

Through interactive exercises, discussion, knowledge-sharing and case-studies participants will come away knowing more about:

the asylum and immigration system,
the problems individuals face going through the system
what can be done to support individuals applying for asylum or immigration status
what ‘campaigning’ means
how activists and local groups can work together to support individuals in their communities
The training is based on the NCADC Campaigning Toolkit: a comprehensive printed and online resource for people fighting for justice in their asylum or immigration case, and the groups working to support them.

Tuesday Campaigning Group

With the support of edgefund we have launched our Tuesday Campaigning group. Vegan/Halal lunch, support with launching right to remain/anti-deportation campaigns, 12:30-2:30. This is modeled after the brilliant group run by WAST in Manchester, it is women only but if there is an interested we are going to add additional meetings and times.

Press….

The National Coalition of Anti-Deportation Campaigns just did a brilliant workshop at WAST in Manchester. WE are just about to launch a weekly support group for women seeking asylum who want to start public, community and political campaigns. We all want to share some of what we have learned in this journey. Below is the link the the guardian article about Fatoumata.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/nov/06/female-genital-mutilation-asylum-gambia

On Line Petition

Thank you for your ongoing support. Despite all our best efforts, the UK Border Agency are still proceeding with the deportation of our good friend Fatoumata, who is seeking asylum in the UK to protect her British born daughter from Female Genital Mutilation.

I would be incredibly grateful if you could take 2 minutes to sign our on-line petition, which we are hoping to present to Theresa May as soon as possible as part of our campaign to prevent the deportation, and forward to any of your contacts who may be interested. Your signature will really make a difference, not just to my friend and her child’s lives, but to women everywhere seeking protection against gender-based crimes.

https://www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/home-secretary-theresa-may-mp-allow-fatoumata-sowe-to-stay-in-the-uk-protect-her-daughter-from-fgm#share

We Are…Proud

We have been asked to reflect on what accomplishments we are proud of and we thought we would share the sounds of a Tuesday in Liverpool.

VDAY Liverpool

THANK YOU SO MUCH TO EVERYONE WHO  CAME TO THE VAGINA MONOLOGUES AND HELPED US TO RAISE £900!

Read Sebastian Gahan’s review of Migrant Artists Mutual Aid’s performances of Eve Ensler’s Vagina Monologues here: http://www.catalystmedia.org.uk/reviews/vagina_monologues.php

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Sunday March 11th 4 pm International Women’s Day Performance at the Lantern Theatre
Sunday March 18th 4 pm Mothering Sunday Performance at the Lantern Theatre
Saturday March 24th 7pm Grand Finale at Ullet Road Unitarian Church
http://events.vday.org/2012/community/liverpool_(tvm)

What are The Vagina Monologues
Hailed by The New York Times as “funny” and “poignant” and by the Daily News as
“intelligent” and “courageous,” The Vagina Monologues, which was first performed offBroadway by Ms. Ensler, dives into the mystery, humor, pain, power, wisdom, outrage and
excitement buried in women’s experiences. Ms. Ensler has performed the play to great acclaim
throughout the world – from Zagreb to Santa Barbara, from London to Seattle, from Jerusalem to Oklahoma City. Villard Books/Random House first published The Vagina Monologues, which
includes a foreword by Gloria Steinem, in February 1998. A special edition was released in hard
cover and paperback in February 2008 in honor of V-Day’s ten year anniversary.
The Vagina Monologues will be performed at (insert location and address), (time), (date). Tickets
are (price) and may be purchased (or reserved) by phoning (insert).

What is V-Day?
V-Day is a global activist movement to end violence against women and girls. V-Day is a catalyst
that promotes creative events to increase awareness, raise money, and revitalize the spirit of
existing anti-violence organizations. V-Day generates broader attention for the fight to stop
violence against women and girls, including rape, battery, incest, female genital mutilation
(FGM), and sex slavery.
Through V-Day campaigns, local volunteers and college students produce annual benefit
performances of The Vagina Monologues, A Memory, A Monologue, A Rant and A Prayer, Any
One Of Us: Words From Prison, screenings of V-Day’s documentary Until The Violence Stops,
and the PBS documentary What I Want My Words To Do To You, Spotlight Teach-Ins and V-Men
workshops, to raise awareness and funds for anti-violence groups within their own communities.
In 2011, over 5,800 V-Day benefit events took place produced by volunteer activists in the U.S.
and around the world, educating millions of people about the reality of violence against women
and girls.
Performance is just the beginning. V-Day stages large-scale benefits and produces innovative
gatherings, films and campaigns to educate and change social attitudes towards violence against
women including the documentary Until The Violence Stops; community briefings on the missing
and murdered women of Juarez, Mexico; the December 2003 V-Day delegation trip to Israel,
Palestine, Egypt and Jordan; the Afghan Women’s Summit; the March 2004 delegation to India;
the Stop Rape Contest; the Indian Country Project; Love Your Tree; the June 2006 two-week
festival of theater, spoken word, performance and community events UNTIL THE VIOLENCE
STOPS: NYC ; the 2008, V-Day 10-year anniversary events V TO THE TENTH at the New
Orleans Arena and Louisiana Superdome; the Stop Raping Our Greatest Resource: Power To The
Women and Girls of the Democratic Republic of Congo Campaign; the V-Girls Campaign, and
the V-Men Campaign.
In Africa, the Middle East, and Asia, V-Day commits ongoing support to build movements and
anti-violence networks. Working with local organizations, V-Day provided hard-won funding that
helped open the first shelters for women in Egypt and Iraq; sponsored annual workshops and
three national campaigns in Afghanistan; convened the “Confronting Violence” conference of
South Asian women leaders; and donated satellite-phones to Afghan women to keep lines of
communication open and action plans moving forward. V-Day was instrumental in the founding
of Karama, a program working in Egypt, Sudan, Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, Jordan, Syria and
Lebanon that works to build upon and strengthen efforts to end violence against women by
bringing together local women’s organizations and other civil society groups in collaboration,
analysis and advocacy at national, regional and international levels.
The V-Day movement is growing at a rapid pace throughout the world, in 140 countries from
Europe to Asia, Africa and the Caribbean and all of North America. V-Day, a non-profit
corporation, distributes funds to grassroots, national and international organizations and programs
that work to stop violence against women and girls. In 2001, V-Day was named one of Worth
Magazine’s “100 Best Charities,” in 2006 one of Marie Claire Magazine’s Top Ten Charities, and in 2010 was named as one of the Top-Rated organizations on GreatNonprofits. In eleven years,
the V-Day movement has raised over $85 million.
The ‘V’ in V-Day stands for Victory, Valentine and Vagina.

Charity versus Mutual Aid

Thank you to everybody who came to the launch of Migrant Artists Mutual Aid, we raised just under £600 for Fatoumata’s legal fund!

Mutual Aid is not charity it is safety net that is based on shared values of justice and equality, it is a safety net that is recession proof, that affirms that even in the toughest times we can stand together to help ourselves.
If we keep our resources inside of our communities we can create prosperity even when times are difficult. It was wonderful to see the exchange of presents, cakes, cd’s and books. People left the Lantern Theatre with full stomachs, arms filled and hopefully renewed.

This is the beginning of a group of artists who can come together to raise small pots of money to grapple with huge problems.  In January of 2011 my family faced the grim reality of not being able to stay together for the lack of 900 pounds.  There were no exemptions in the immigration rules to deal with families facing financial hardships short of human rights protection once we faced deportation.

With the support of another artist, Lena Simic, through the Becoming British project I was able to pay the fee.  It is not enough, however, just to solve one person’s problem.

Migrant Artists Mutual Aid will be a network of people coming together to produce and attend events that can raise between 1000 and 3000 pounds.

December 11, 2011 we will be hosting our first event to support Fatoumata Sowe, a Gambian mother claiming asylum to protect her 2 year old British born daughter from FGM.  We will need to raise 3000 pounds in order for her to have the top barristers to represent her case to the highest level necessary.

The event will be hosted by the Lantern Theatre and we need artists that are willing to perform, give short workshops, donate small works for auction, attend the event, and help spread the word.

This is not a one off however.  Mutual Aid is a type of social insurance where everybody feels more secure knowing that there is a community of support that is there for you if you are in a crisis.

The Lantern Theatre

Migrant Artists Mutual Aid is based at The Lantern Theatre. The theatre was recently taken over by Margaret Connell. Her work putting on some of the best live performance in the region and supporting Liverpool’s creative artists at every stage of their career is ground breaking.
Liverpool’s most intimate “Fringe” Venue

The Lantern Theatre is a family run, cosy and welcoming Theatre situated in a converted warehouse near Liverpool One. The auditorium holds around eighty five seats and has a fully licensed bar. The Lantern hosts regular performances from touring Theatre companies, local community groups, comedians and musicians, and is home to resident Theatre Company Tiny Giants who produce regular Theatre pieces throughout the year. The Theatre is family friendly and offers a variety of performances and activities for families and children including; birthday parties, summers schools and family fun days. The Lantern is a beautiful space that offers its audience a more personal Theatre experience and hosts a variety of different events to suit all tastes. Since opening in 2009, The Lantern has received fantastic feedback from artists and the general public, and continues to operate as an independent, family run Theatre that supports local artists and is at the heart of Liverpool’s community.
The Lantern Theatre also welcomes any theatre, music and comedy groups/promoters to contact us if you have any special events or productions that you would like to present on our stage.

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