Every two months or so, Solidarity Room Project likes to update you on what's been going on with our project and in the news, and opportunities on how to support us. Welcome to newsletter number four!
For those of you just hearing about us, The Solidarity Room Project (SRP) is an all-volunteer run organization that fund-raises to provide living costs and helps coordinate other support for individuals and families navigating the asylum-seeking process in New York City.
Make donations here.
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More info on our website.
Solidarity Room Project Updates
Toward the beginning of the pandemic, we organized a Virtual Comedy Show and Raffle. Thank you to those of you who participated, it was really fun, and we were able to raise over $1000, all of which went directly to rent, utilities, and other living costs for three Solidarity Room Project recipients. Since our inception, we have been able to provide short-term housing for five asylum seekers and long-term housing for a single mother seeking asylum and her child who is now about to turn 18 months. The mother's working papers finally come through today! 🎉 We have committed to supporting her and her child through the end of the year, to give her enough time to find a job and save up money to start paying rent and other living costs.
Current Events
There has been a lot of talk on social media recently about “direct action”. Despite the way it is often used, direct action is not just a buzzword for any form of public protest or civil disobedience. The idea of direct action is to do something you need done directly, yourself or together with your people, rather than to ask those with power to change things for you.
You may have heard that last week a new caravan of migrants from Honduras started its way toward the US, following the footsteps of those who walked for weeks over 2000 miles of terrain two years ago. Their government is letting them down, violence and corruption are overshadowing their lives, and everything is exacerbated as the pandemic continues. Their direct action is to deny that colonial borders should prevent them from living, and continue stepping forward. We send them strength and love as we see how the politics of the Americas conspire to hinder them.
If you'd like to read more about the many changes Trump has made to the asylum and refugee system in the US, and how that might change, or not, based on the upcoming election, see the following article.
Get Involved!
As we sit thousands of miles away from the most recent caravan, one form of direct action that you can take part in is to consider opening your home to a person following US law to ask for asylum from life threatening conditions in their home country. We at Solidarity Room Project have a fundraising platform that you can take advantage of to crowdsource associated costs, and can consult with you about what we have learned to help support asylum seekers during this tumultuous time in their lives. Please contact us if you would like to find out more.
In particular, we are currently looking for immediate and longer-term housing for a trans woman who speaks Russian. If she doesn't sound like the right fit for you but you have some space to offer, we are connected to other asylum seekers in need of housing as well, so please do get in touch.
People in our community have been able host asylum seekers for a number of reasons: one friend left town for a few months and was able to offer their entire apartment during that time. A few collective houses have been able to offer a bedroom when one of the roommates moved out or went traveling. The project started when an apartment in a co-op building became available. Consider your living situation, do you have ability to offer someone a place to live, either temporarily or long-term? Maybe you can combine your bedroom and home office into one room for a while. Maybe you have a guest room and aren't expecting a lot of visitors coming up. Maybe you plan to leave the city during the holiday season and would like to offer your home to welcome an asylum seeker instead of hiring a house-sitter this year. Maybe someone you know falls into one or more of these categories. Get in touch!
Supplies Needed
We were grateful to have many clothing donations after our last newsletter. The excess clothing that asylum seekers did not take was donated to local shelters to provide gender-affirming clothing, and to The Brooklyn Free Store. If you have clothes or supplies that you'd like to contribute directly, please send email us at solidarityroomproject@riseup.net to coordinate the donation.
Some specific needs:
child bike seat
toddler gloves/mittens
snow pants for age 18-24 months
diapers (email for updates in size)
baby wipes
gift certificates for groceries or pharmacies
laptop computer or tablet
Become A Member
As Grace Lee Boggs taught, "The only only way to survive is to take care of each other." In these uncertain times a monthly contribution goes a long way to help folks feel welcome in their new home and community. We hope that over time The Solidarity Room Project can support multiple asylum-seeking families and people. Your monthly contribution helps provide the stability to do so. Your support—big or small, financial or otherwise—helps remind us that this is a project built on community.
If you want to join The Solidarity Room Project as a monthly member, please do so at the following link: https://withfriends.co/the_solidarity_room_project/join
(If you'd like to make a one-time donation, you can do so at the above link as well.)
Book Recommendation for Kids
If you're looking for a way to talk to children about migration, specifically the 2018 caravan from the Northern Triangle of Central America, we reccomend The Caravan To The North, by Jorge Argueta (a translation from the original Caravana al Norte). Click here for a review and spanish language snippet.
Parting Words
Here is a poem by Eduardo Galeano on the experience of living under the oppression of euro-centric supremacy (two seperate animated versions here):
Fleas dream of buying themselves a dog, and nobodies dream of escaping poverty: that one magical day good luck will suddenly rain down on them–will rain down in buckets. But good luck doesn’t rain down yesterday, today, tomorrow, or ever. Good luck doesn’t even fall in a fine drizzle, no matter how hard the nobodies summon it, even if their left hand is tickling, or if they begin the new day with their right foot, or start the new year with a change of brooms.
The nobodies: nobody’s children, owners of nothing. The nobodies: the no ones, the nobodied, running like rabbits, dying through life, screwed every which way.
Who are not, but could be.
Who don’t speak languages, but dialects.
Who don’t have religions, but superstitions.
Who don’t create art, but handicrafts.
Who don’t have culture, but folklore.
Who are not human beings, but human resources.
Who do not have faces, but arms.
Who do not have names, but numbers.
Who do not appear in the history of the world, but in the police blotter of the local paper.
The nobodies, who are not worth the bullet that kills them.
Let’s show people that despite the borders that colonizers helped construct and enforce, despite the culture that asks them to believe they don’t deserve to live free of violence and fear, that we care for and welcome them into our city.
That's all for now! Stay in touch by signing up for email updates.
We smile to think of the day we can all see each other again in person. In the meantime, stay well!
The Solidarity Room Project team <3
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