Our members

My name is Moussa Mbarek and I fled Libya more than five years ago and have been living in Dresden ever since. I am Tuareg and come from Ubari, an oasis region in the southwest of Libya. 
My goal was always to study. Between my desire to become an engineer or to study art stood my origins. Like many other Tuareg, I have no citizenship in the country where I was born. This heritage determines my life, also here in Europe.
When the conflicts in Libya made a normal life so unbearable that you could be shot by the rival militias at any time and your wages were not enough to survive, I made my way to Europe.
Here I fight for an open society with the means of art and the mediation of cultural diversity. A central point of my exhibitions is the topic of statelessness. This artistic approach has often succeeded in drawing people's attention to this issue and developing an understanding for the necessity of political action.

Nando Sigona is Senior Research Officer at the Refugee Studies Centre, University of Oxford. He is currently working on research on statelessness, diasporas and immigration and citizenship regimes in the EU, and on transitions to adulthood of former unaccompanied asylum seeking children in Europe. He teaches on the MSc in Migration Studies and has taught sociology of migration and forced migration at Oxford Brookes University and City University London. In October 2012, Nando was awarded the University of Oxford's Teaching Excellence Award for his 'outstanding contribution to the MSc in Migration Studies'

NANSEN is an independent center of expertise in refugee law based in Brussels. Persons in a vulnerable position are core to our mandate in particular: victims of torture, stateless persons and migrants in administrative detention. Our mission is to develop and make available to all persons in need of international protection quality legal aid so that their fundamental rights become more effective. To achieve this objective, we combine technical legal expertise with an interdisciplinary approach to asylum. NANSEN was set up in 2017 by a group of lawyers and academics experienced in the field of refugee, human rights and migration law.

Working together, a team of immigrant, migrant and refugee women have mobilized themselves to propel Anila’s vision into a movement. By raising awareness through facilitated platforms of discussion addressing the challenges and opportunities migrant / Refugee women face in European cities and cultures, New Women Connectors aims to create policy and community shifts surrounding these matters.
Envisioned, created and led by migrant refugee women, New Women Connectors focuses on ensuring all voices are heard and responded to, so that migrant refugee women can feel empowered. We believe that by creating an open platform, we can facilitate individual and group reflection through the exchange of dialogue and listening to one another. As a result, these efforts can, and will, lead to collaborative feasible solutions of urgent matters migrant women and newcomers face in European cities. 
New Women Connectors aims to demonstrate how, through the power of voice, individuals can reflect on and recognize the capabilities we together- as migrant women - have and share.

The Norwegian Organisation for Asylum Seekers (NOAS) is an independent membership organisation working to protect the rights of asylum seekers in Norway. Its main activities are to give information and legal assistance to asylum seekers, as well as advocacy work toward the political establishment and the general public. NOAS’ largest assignment is the Information and counselling program commissioned by the Directory of Immigration (UDI), which provides information and counselling to asylum seekers shortly after arrival to Norway. NOAS aims to contribute to an asylum policy and practice rooted in humanism, justice and international obligations. NOAS’ focus is on rights for asylum seekers, which also includes stateless persons – approx. 4 -600 stateless persons register as asylum seekers in Norway each year.

The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) is an independent, humanitarian, non-profit, non-governmental organisation which provides assistance, protection and contributes to durable solutions to refugees and internally displaced persons worldwide. NRC promotes and protects the rights of refugees and people who have been displaced within their own country. We take action during situations of armed conflict, and engage in other contexts where our competencies will add value. The majority of our more than 5000 staff members are national employees in NRC’s projects in 25 countries in Africa, Asia, America and Europe. All our projects are supervised by the head office in Oslo. NRC’s vision is “Rights Respected and People Protected”.

Nowras Rahhal is a stateless scientist who was born as a stateless refugee in Syria in 1993. Despite the disadvantages, he was able to pursue his education. Major part of his education, as a child, was in a primary UNRWA school in Damascus. He obtained a bachelor’s degree in Pharmaceutical chemistry from the University of Damascus in 2016. He left Syria after 7 years of facing the Syrian civil war atrocities and arrived in Germany in 2018 to continue his studies in a master’s degree in Nanoscience. In 2020, he joined a research group at the Max Planck Institute and contributed to the development of a vaccine candidate for the SARS-CoV2 (Covid-19) pandemic. He is determined to raise more awareness on statelessness and to advocate for the rights of those who lack nationality.

Omar Othman has been working to raise awareness of the challenges facing refugees and stateless people since arriving in Europe. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Methods of Teaching English as a Foreign Language and a Master’s degree in Management from Belgium. Born in Khan Younis, Palestine, Omar has organised and spoken at various university-sponsored regional and national events to improve their understanding of the complexities of asylum and statelessness in Belgium. His work touches on cultural, human developmental as well as legal dimensions. Principally, Omar seeks to find strategies for potential citizens to become healthy and dependable contributors to the society they are living within.

The Open Society Justice Initiative uses law to protect and empower people around the world. Through litigation, advocacy, research, and technical assistance, the Justice Initiative promotes human rights and builds legal capacity for open societies. The Justice Initiative fosters accountability for international crimes, combat racial discrimination and statelessness, support criminal justice reform, address abuses related to national security and counterterrorism, expand freedom of information and expression, and stem corruption linked to the exploitation of natural resources.

OPU, the Organization for Aid to Refugees, is the oldest and largest non-governmental organization in the Czech Republic which assists refugees, stateless persons and migrants. We provide free in-person legal and social aid to refugees, stateless persons and migrants. OPU offers this help throughout the entire country by means of aid in all eight reception, accommodation and detention centers and five regional offices. OPU has been the watchdog of any unlawful practices and systemic failures of the Czech asylum and migration policy, including statelessness procedure. This helps us to create systemic change. OPU’s director and lawyers appear in media regularly, criticizing the Czech Ministry of Interior and laws that hurt migrants. OPU has successfully represented many refugees, stateless persons and their families, has fought against unlawful detention and prevented deportation of the most vulnerable individuals and has publicly reported on grave breaches of international law.