City Plaza focuses on creating solidarity petitions and encourages local residents, politicians and refugees to sign a petition calling for increased resource support for refugees in Greece, the protection of Refugee squats throughout Athens and other major cities that house up to 2500 refugees and migrants and the closure of refugee detention centers that the Syriza government initially promised in their election campaign in 2015. This petition was presented to the Greek Parliament. Furthermore, there were citywide demonstrations for Refugee Support on June 23, 2017 which included a march from the City Plaza refugee squat to Ministry of Migration building in the capital’s Klafthmonos Sqaure. The city wide demonstration was a component of the direct action campaign that City Plaza wanted to engage in and was a campaign strategy to incite passion among a mass audience that maybe do not share the same complete anarchist ideology of the City Plaza activists but do care about improving the refugee situation in Athens. Moreover, knowledge production and distribution is also another important aspect of City Plaza’s campaign strategy to ensure that accurate information is being presented about refugees and also allowing refugees to provide their own perspective about why they are coming to Europe. City Plaza distributes alternative newspapers providing true information on refugees and allowing them to publish their own poetry and stories about their migration. They allow them to reconnect with their hometowns through literature while also allowing them a perspective on the debate about refugees in Greece. Usually refugee perspectives are not empowered in traditional refugee protection measures but City Plaza aims to provide a platform for refugees to tell their own stories and allows them to empower themselves to be the activists that they are. This information and newspapers are usually published electronically on their Facebook page. Finally, City Plaza supports the provision of alternative services such as the “No Border School” in Athens, which teaches Refugees essential language skills and helps them adjust to life in Greece while also helping them complicate the difficult asylum process. It aims to provide alternative services for refugees that differ from the provision given by national and international governments that have shown to be under resourced and ineffective in adequately providing refugees with timely services.
Internally the group organize effectively by engaging in weekly hotel meetings that provide all members of the hotel, refugees and activists, an equitable platform to share their perspectives on the direction of the hotel and how to address the changing political climate especially creating solidarity with refugees. These weekly hotel meetings are open to all members of the hotel and are where tasks such as cleaning, laundry and security for the next week are assigned and updates given on the future of the hotel and the type of advocacy being done by City Plaza to ensure refugees are safe and protected in City Plaza, in Athens and in Greece.
Externally, the City Plaza Hotel has ran a successful publicity campaign that has caught the attention of numerous global magazines and news outlets including the Atlantic, New York Times and the Guardian. The group uses effective social media techniques including posting on FB regularly with informative videos, images and promotional materials that provide information about the mission of City Plaza Hotel. The hotel uses numerous social media sites to disseminate their message while also allowing media access to the hotel to report on the inner workings of the hotels operations and the success of the refugee project. Furthermore, the hotel actively tries to invite and encourage journalists and global news media outlets to come to City Plaza Hotel and witness firsthand the incredible work being done by refugees and solidarity activists within the space and promote their work to a global audience. City Plaza relies entirely on donations made by the public, and coverage from global media outlets will only increase the status of City Plaza and encourage more people to donate to their cause.
The largest success of City Plaza has been the physical space that has been created to not only provide accommodation to refugees but other incredibly necessary services such as classrooms, kitchen services and others that provide refugees with a sense of dignity and security. Although, the physical space of the hotel is under threat from the owner of the hotel and right wing activists who want to close refugee squats across the city. The physical space represents the incredible solidarity space that activists have created for refugees and the support mechanisms that can be created without governmental or NGO support.
City Plaza Hotel has also created an external space for solidarity activists to come together and support refugees. Through City Plaza they have created a central hub in Athens that refugees can come to and share their stories of persecution that get lost in their migration. The space treats them with dignity and respect and guarantees that their privacy and perspectives are upheld.
Furthermore, the Hotel provides refugees with a much needed space of privacy in the form of private bedrooms in the hotel. In camps across Europe, refugees live in filthy conditions in refugee camps where normally their tents are packed close together with others guaranteeing them or their belongings no security. By having their own room in City Plaza, refugees are allowed a sacred private space to retreat to with their families and live a semblance of a normal life. The rooms provide them with their own beds, showers and balconies and allow them a space truly for themselves to lock away and reflect on their journey so far. City Plaza is an oasis for refugees amid the chaos and misery in which so many find themselves in Greece.
Listen to a podcast from an activist in Greece, Tasos Sagris who discusses how activists have created new spaces for anarchism and political and social work in Greece.
The group introduces numerous different cultural art forms to ensure that refugees are able to freely express and celebrate their own distinct cultures but also to ensure they remain their connection to their homelands which they were forced to flee. They host cultural arts themed nights that celebrate the various different cultures that call City Plaza home, with poetry, plays and artwork shown throughout to celebrate the heritage and stories that the refugees bring with them to City Plaza. In 2017, City Plaza recognized the importance that holding onto ones culture was for refugees in their search for rehabilitation after the atrocities experienced in their home countries. Therefore, as trauma therapy, activists include different cultural art forms such as Kurdish dancing or Afghani poetry to allow refugees to heal and rehabilitate in the walls of City Plaza while also retaining critical links back to their home countries.
The group also uses its promotional materials to highlights the culture of the numerous different nationalities living in City Plaza Hotel and ensures that culture is actively respected across the hotel by not allowing one culture/ethnicity to dominate each floor of the hotel but rather through room assignments encouraging all cultures to live and work together to ensure that the hotel is run efficiently and effectively.
Watch a video from the 2 year celebration of City Plaza Hotel that incorporated traditional Kurdish dancing of the residents into a celebration for all!
Click below to watch a video straight from City Plaza that fuses the cultural forms of Bollywood dance and music to the resistance work being done by City Plaza and other Refugee Solidarity organizations.
Storytelling is a critical cultural component of City Plaza Hotel and the wider refugee solidarity movement. Click below to explore some of the stories of refugees involved with City Plaza and across Europe who have escaped persecution throughout the Middle East to escape to Europe for safety: