The Europe Bottom-Up Migration Working Group, the Greek Forum of Refugees, Network for Dialogue and the Department of Public Health Policy at the University of West Attica have the pleasure of inviting you to our nexus conference on May 10-12, 2022.

Europe Bottom-Up!
The mission of Europe Bottom-Up is to strengthen the participation and the shared responsibility of European citizens, their communities and their organisations. Founded in 2021, its Migration Working Group aims to develop, practise and promote new democratic participative formats, creating synergy and impact across boundaries: Academically, culturally, politically.

Formulating a response to the Ukraine crisis
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has created the worst humanitarian crisis in Europe since the second world war. The overriding imperative now is to stop the violence and support its citizens and refugees in any way possible. How can we best help empower the empowerers, humanitarian and civil society organisations that are working to mitigate the devastating impact of this war and other crises?

Empowering the empowerers
This conference, at the EPLO building in downtown Athens, represents the first opportunity for the Europe Bottom-Up Migration Working Group to invite its entire network to meet. We aim to build bridges by inviting European academics, politicians and other European stakeholders in order to create new connections, revive old ones and set an agenda for the future.

Europe: From consent to consensus
Changed times call for new forms of unity, political dialogue and bottom-up action. Our keynotes, panels and workshops will address policy-making in Europe, inclusion through dialogue and partnership, new ways of effectively building capacity and supporting engagement and, last but not least, good governance with a special focus on the municipalities. We are looking forward to welcoming you in Athens!

Yonous Muhammadi, Greek Forum of Refugees
Pieter Boeder, Migration Working Group at Europe Bottom-Up
Aleksandra Djurić Milovanović, Network for Dialogue
Theodoros Fouskas, Department of Public Health Policy, University of West Attica

Thoughts by Pieter Boeder from the Athens Conference: Being realistic, resilient and reckless