On 20 September 2023 the quadrilingual webguide of the network Welcome to Europe was relaunched: “w2eu.info provides information to refugees and migrants that might be useful on their journey to and through Europe. We want to give access to counseling and useful contacts in different European countries. (…) We welcome all travelers on their difficult trip and wish all of them a good journey – because freedom of movement is everybody’s right!“
These sentences, which were drafted years ago, are still valid to describe the basic idea of the project, founded already in 2010, and still online and now with updated information, a renewed design and new mapping tools.
Lampedusa commercial pier from the inside of fishing vessel, November 2023, Credit: Maldusa
Brief history of w2eu
The project of w2eu started already in 2010, born in the common struggles during the noborder camp 2009 in Lesvos: „…to build daily structures and to provide useful multilingual information to empower and to support refugees and migrants in transit for their right to move to their desired destination“. In 2019 a 10-year brochure was published, in which the history of the network was presented:
http://infomobile.w2eu.net/files/2019/07/w2eu-10years-booklet-EN-201906-screen.pdf
In the same year, in summer 2019, Welcome to Europe initiated the first Transborder Summer Camp as a meeting point to discuss solidarity on the routes with the approach to build and extend infrastructures for freedom of movement:
In 2020 the w2eu-network became less active and tired, also affected by the consequences of Covid. But in a workshop during the second Transborder Summer Camp in July 2022 new people joined and the reorganization of the project started. As of September 2023, the contact lists of most country- and border sections have been updated again.
For the Central Med region the information and contacts are available not only for Italy and Malta but also for Tunisia and Libya. We are open for comments and corrections, we welcome all additions and further updates.
And we ask all solidarity networks between land and sea in and around Europe to spread our video-clip with the onliest demand, which will lead to an end of death and violence at the borders: for freedom of movement!
Website: https://w2eu.info/
