Today, December 16th, at 6:30pm, the first online meeting of the “Right to the City for All” working group will take place, organized from within the DWE movement. This group invites people who do not have German nationality or German-language skills to participate in the DWE campaign.
DWE is thus widening the spectrum of involvement, aware that many people may find it difficult to work exclusively in German within the Kiezteams. For this reason, English is the working language in this group, but not necessarily the only one when it comes to forming signature collection teams, since Spanish, Portuguese, and French speakers— among others— will be present in the working group.
The objective is, on the one hand, to collect signatures for the second phase of the preparation of the referendum, which will take place between the end of February 2021 and the end of June. These signatures may be those considered valid ones (that is, those from German nationals), but also from Berlin’s migrant community, which is about 25% of the population. In this way, the aim is to show the support of people who have lived in the city for years and do not have basic political rights such as the right to vote.
On the other hand, work will also be done on the translation of DWE materials, such as the movement’s learning materials, such as flyers explaining concepts like socialization of housing, or videos about the compensations for expropriation. Finally, the “Right to the City for All” working group organizes actions like hanging up posters or handing out flyers. For this, German is not necessary as the language of communication and the activists can work in a friendly atmosphere.
The first meeting of the new working group”Right to the City for All“ will happen online on Wednesday, December 16th from 6:30pm to 8:30pm.
From 6:30 to 7pm, we will provide a short introduction to the referendum and the initiative behind it for everyone new to the campaign. If you already know the basics, feel free to join us from 7 pm onwards, when we will start gathering ideas and discussing all possibilities for this new working group to contribute to this initiative and beyond.
To join the working group on the 16th December, please write an e-mail to right2thecity@dwenteignen.de to receive the access data for the meeting. We encourage anyone interested to join!
