Who we are
Statefree started with a small idea and has since grown into an established organisation. Built by a team of wonderful people and supported by great partners and collaborators.
How it all began
What has now grown into a project which is led by a great group of people and supported by several civil society organizations, once started with a small idea of mine.
My name is Christiana and I am a stateless person living in Germany. Despite the fact that I’ve been affected by statelessness since birth I had never really grasped and fully understood the issue of statelessness.
A while ago I started my mission to find the single-source of truth for statelessness. I failed. While I wasn’t able to find the single-source of truth I did discover a huge void of information and lack of communication, especially between stateless people and organizations which are advocating for the rights of stateless people.
So, I decided to create Statefree. A platform that allows us to build community, share stories and maybe at some point uncover the truth I was initially looking for.
Challenges face by stateless persons
Limited access to
basic human rights
Lack of representation
and inclusion of
stateless people
Lack of clear processes and legal frameworks
leading to Statefree’s main areas of work
Community
The main focus of our work is our Statefree Community – an online and offline community for stateless persons to belong, connect and share experiences with each other. We want to create a safe space for stateless persons and their allies to share, ask and discuss about the topic of statelessness.
Visibility
The reasons for statelessness are diverse, but the effect is often the same: the lack of visibility leads to a lack of awareness, representation and recognition of stateless persons. We have decided to give the visual narrative of statelessness and stateless people back to who it belongs to – stateless people.
Equal Rights
True empowerment is based on equal access to rights. Our aim is to create inclusion and full participation for stateless people in Germany. To achieve this, we have started political advocacy in order to transform German law and improve current processes.
HI THERE, WE ARE STATEFREE
We are a non-profit organisation that aims to create visibility and community around the topic of statelessness.
Hannah
Reuter
Hannah is the second chairperson of Statefree. She is responsible for all things relating finance and admin. Without her holistic thinking, focussing on the big picture and organising skills we would definitely overlook things more often!
Jonas
Schultens
As our agile coach, Jonas is responsible for facilitation and meeting structure. He is one of the founding members. Without him our meetings would take double the time with half the outcome.
Christiana
Bukalo
Christiana is a social change maker and founder of Statefree e.V. As a stateless individual she has decided to build Statefree to create visibility, community and belonging for and together with stateless people.
Magdalena
Simmel
Magdalena is responsible for building the community page together with Insided and implementing new ideas that further help the digital community. Her passion for building a real community also translates to supporting and comforting us as a team.
Charlotte
Sievers
Charlotte is Statefree’s Chief of Staff and one of the founding members. Together with Christiana she is responsible for making Statefree sustainable as an organisation – structurally as well as financially. Her tasks include Fundraising and developing the Statefree Team & Organisation Culture.
Margarida
Farinha
As Statefrees Head of Research and Community, Margarida contributes with articles, research as well as organizing the Statefree Community. As an anthropologist who has done research on statelessness she makes sure we get our facts straight. She is one of the founding members of Statefree e.V..
Myriam
Dutzi
Myriam is one of the founding members of Statefree e.V.. Currently she’s not an active member of the team due to limited time capacity. If there’s an emergency we can very fortunately still count on her.
Melissa
Grimm
Melissa is coordinating the content in the community as well as on social media. She is one of the founding members of Statefree e.V. She always has an open ear for any worries the team or any member of the Community might have.
Georgi
Konstantinov
Georgi is in charge of the Statefree community page administration. He’s also behind a lot of the pictures we use on the Website or in the Community. On top of that he’s known for helping out quickly wherever he can even if it’s outside of his responsibilities.
Denis Neselovskyi
Denis is Statefree’s legal policy expert. Having studied Human Rights and Law and having worked at the UNHCR Strasbourg, he has the expertise and experience to make sure, Statefree’s political advocacy work is always alligned with national and international legal requirements.
Great volunteers
& the Statefree
Community
Statefree is lucky to have awesome individuals supporting us in varying capacities and with different areas of expertise. Without them, we would not be able to do the work we do!
Thank you!
Mission and Values
Our mission is to empower stateless people and create spaces in which statefree people and their allies can connect to start change and build a community of belonging. A strong community needs strong values to thrive and grow. These are the ones we are guided by:
Collectiveness
We strongly believe in the power of collective action and collaboration. We value every person’s engagement and know that Statefree can only exist as a space that is co-created by the whole community.
Belonging
The Statefree community is a space for everyone to share and unfold their true self. We are working on making it as accessible and inclusive as possible, and are aware of different (language) barriers that can get in the way of it. We value authenticity and vulnerability, and will do our best in creating a safe space for everyone.
Empowering
We believe in the importance of uplifting, empowering and taking care of each other. We are all standing up for the rights of stateless people, and we want this to be a space to amplify their voices.
We hope you feel at home here, because no one belongs here more than you.
Join us and be part
of Statefree
You want to join our mission of creating
a Statefree Community?
You have an idea how you could contribute to raising awareness & driving change for stateless people? Contact us!
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SZ Junge Leute
January 2021
Critical Statelessness Studies
December 2020
SÜDWIND MAGAZIN
January-February 2022
The Pioneer
February 2022
Deutschlandfunk Kultur
März 2021
BeVisible Seminar, Trixiewiz e.V.
November 2020
Statefree Newsletter
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