No Name Kitchen: Solidarity with asylum seekers in the Western Balkans

The Response is an award-winning documentary film, book, and podcast series from Shareable.net exploring how communities are building collective resilience in the wake of disasters with host Tom Llewellyn.

It's the first week of November in 2021 and COP26 is in full swing. Many people had low expectations going into it, this is the 26th COP after all and the outlook for Climate Change is only getting worse year after year. With all of the moneyed and political interests influencing the framework for discussions, could the agreements coming out of the conference actually meet the moment? Probably not...

One aspect of climate change that isn't talked about nearly enough, is the mass migration of people that it's already forcing. According to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, more than 75% of the 40 million internal displacements last year were caused by disasters. And a 2020 report from Institute for Economics and Peace, found that over a billion people lived in 31 countries that aren't sufficiently resilient to withstand ecological threats.

With the increasing number of climate-fueled disasters impacting nearly every corner of the world, the number of displaced peoples will most likely only go up from here.

With all of that in mind, we want to resurface an episode from season 3 which offers an inside look at an active migration route into the continent that's hosting this year's Climate Summit, Europe.

The Western Balkans are the entryway for asylum seekers from places like Afghanistan, Syria, and Northern Africa to enter into the European Union. As they approach this region, many are hunted down by authorities, violently beaten, and forced into camps with terrible conditions.

In the face of this crisis, a project emerged to help provide food and other basic necessities to these asylum seekers. It's known as No Name Kitchen, but don't let the name fool you, as you'll see, the project is much, much more than just a community kitchen.

Response producer Robert Raymond, spoke with one of the project's co-founders, Bruno Morán, about what exactly is going on in the region and how No Name Kitchen is helping to build community while providing mutual aid to one of the most vulnerable populations in the world.

https://www.nonamekitchen.org/en/

Episode credits:

Host and executive producer: Tom Llewellyn

Series producer: Robert Raymond

Theme Music: "Meet you on the other side" by Cultivate Beats

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