We are still reflecting on the conversations, insights, and energy from our 2026, Europe Day Conference: From Migration Narratives to Lived Realities.
Thank you to everyone who joined us and contributed to such a stimulating day!
Drawn from CRP’s work, our discussions highlighted the practical barriers to centring lived experiences when shaping policy, advocacy, and public understanding, while also focusing pragmatically on how we can overcome them collectively.
Thank you to our keynote speaker, Sunder Katwala, Director of British Future, for speaking on migration narratives across Europe through a long-term lens. Your expertise shone through in your willingness to tackle such a salient topic.
Thank you to our own Naroa Hammerson for warmly guiding our Panel on Migration Narratives: Before Brexit, During Brexit, and Now. Your storytelling, coupled with your resolution-oriented approach, both comforted and challenged our panellists.
Thank you to our dear Jen Ang for your insightful reflections on hope, collectivising, and personal inherent value. Thank you also for expertly illustrating how the field of human rights lawyering has changed in tandem with migration narratives throughout your career, as well as exploring how it can once again change for the better.
Thank you to Dr Taulant Guma for your invaluable contributions, drawing on your research documenting the discrimination of Eastern European migrants in the UK. Your sociological insights into the internalisation of external borders and the process of “othering” were particularly meaningful.
Thank you to Dr Fiona Costello for breaking down your comprehensive research on the experiences of racialised EU citizens post-Brexit. Your multidisciplinary findings on the working conditions of racialised migrants in England revealed stark parallels with precarious gig work in Scotland.
Thank you to our esteemed Charlie McMillan, Director of Human Rights Consortium Scotland, for introducing and highlighting key insights from Migrant’s Guide to Scotland – Your Human Rights in a Different Country, as part of the Migrants Participation Project.
Thank you for situating such resources within the counter-narrative to current anti-migration rhetoric and reminding us that Scotland is indeed an island where, ultimately, “everyone arrived here on a boat at some point.”
Last but not least, thank you to Isabell Poppelbaum, Deputy EU Ambassador to the UK, for sharing your policy-informed expertise on the evolving dynamics between the EU and the UK over the years.
We believe that what made the conference especially valuable was the openness in the room: bringing together people from different sectors, backgrounds, and communities to engage critically and share their on-the-ground experiences to explore more sustainable solutions together.
Thank you to our CEO, Noelia Martinez, and our Founder and Chair, Mark Lazarowicz, without whom this work would not be possible.
A heartfelt thank you as well to our team – Monika Connelly, Elisabeth Mulero, Maria Papachristos, Adela Stan, Monika Niemiec, Nargas Othman, Naroa Hammerson, and Magdalena Augustyn Lygas – for your unwavering work.
We also deeply want to thank both our volunteers of the day.
Thank you to our dear Board Member, Davide Bargna, for helping us on the day with necessary practicalities, and to our designer Svetlana Colesnic for her instrumental work on our website to promote the event.
Thank you dearly to all our attendees and your precious contributions, and once again, thank you to the Festival of Europe for counting on us yet another year.
We are particularly excited to continue building on the ideas that emerged from these discussions, and we welcome future collaborations with researchers, advocates, and community groups who share this commitment.
And so, we look forward to continuing the conversation.
See you next year!
#EuropeDay #Migration #HumanRights #CitizensRightsProject #CommunityEngagement #Policy #Advocacy
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