Note: This page is frequently updated. It is by no means complete.
This page includes resources that do not readily fit on any of the other pages.
40 maps that explain the Middle East
Maps can be a powerful tool for understanding the world, particularly the Middle East, a place in many ways shaped by changing political borders and demographics. Here are 40 maps crucial for understanding the Middle East — its history, its present, and some of the most important stories in the region today.
Note. The map above, one of the 40 in this collection, is of Arabic dialects.
Ikea flat-pack houses for refugees
The Ikea Foundation will supply the Better Shelter units to the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), which will distribute them globally to displaced families and communities later this year.
The Lift Project: Lesvos
We are a group of four master students, part of the Sustainable Technologies Group in Aalto University Finland.
The Lift Project was created to document and report about up-cylcing and cleaning initiatives dealing with the waste left behind during the refugee crisis - in particular life jackets which are accumulating by the thousands and are an environmental time bomb. These initiatives are key in helping Europe's capacity to continue helping the refugees seeking asylum and a safe place within our borders.
With our report and visual documentation we hope to inspire others to positively react and help the very urgent and real situation in Europe today.
Moving Europe
Towards the end of a „long summer of migration“ we see feverish activity everywhere to stop the departures. Especially the movements of flight and migration along the open route from Greece via the Balkans to Germany and Scandinavia are to be slowed down, and control to be re-established. Continued militarisation of the external border, detention in hot spots in Greece and Italy, detention camps declared to be transit zones, new fences plus Frontex and EUNAVFOR – from sealing off Europe to firing orders, it is not far. Will the European promise of freedom find its end?
Laden with these questions we are traveling the routes of flight and migration. At the end of October we start with a mini-bus as a mobile and flexible infrastructure of support and information in the Balkans: to render support in urgent cases, but predominantly to gather and spread information and to show presence towards the „security forces“. The bus project will be embedded into a network of activists which will provide regularily updated reports at mostly all border crossings and points of interest along the route between the Aegean and Scandinavia. These reports will then be spread to those who need them on their onward journey.
In this way we want to contribute to keep open a path into a new Europe – for those that are arriving as well as for ourselves.
Europe is in movement, Europe needs to move – Moving Europe!
Note. They have a daily "live ticker" from stressed border areas.
PEGIDA
-- "Patriotische Europäer gegen die Islamisierung des Abendlandes" or Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the Occident (or "West")
We would like. that all children can grow up in a peaceful and cosmopolitan Germany and Europe! We are not"politically correct" ...! We bow to NOT the mainstream media and thus not the "do-gooders"! We perceive our constitutional contemporary freedom of expression .EVERY man, regardless of nationality or religion is welcome !!! We just want to NOT FORCE on our roads such as in Hamburg or Celle !!! Our cities, towns and municipalities are NOT places for discharging Stellvertreter- or religious wars !! ! we DO nOT accept RUSHING of any Salafists against "infidels" or other beliefs ... we accept in Europe no "activities" of IS, PKK, al Qaeda or the rest of them! our free thinking, our free and open way of life we want for ALL people living in Europe today!We ask OUR Justice an exhausting ALL legal means against self-proclaimed "holy warriors" and hatemongers!was the separation of church and state, and is a success in Europe. the "father of the Turks", Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, introduced in Turkey, after the separation of state and religion, with success in the modern age and has proven that to a Muslim-oriented country is capable of! [Translated from German]
Note. Also see the film The Rise of PEGIDA about Tommy Robinson, the leader of the UK branch of PEGIDA. From the film's notes: "'I believe Islam failed. Sikhs, Hindus, Jews, they haven't failed to integrate into British society... It's only Islam that's failed,' Robinson said back in 2012, as the leader of the EDL. Four years on, he is now the leader of the UK branch of Pegida, the controversial right-wing European movement which has been attracting crowds of thousands in Germany and other countries. "My views on the problems we face haven't changed... just what we need to do has", Robinson says. "We seem to have convinced ourselves that all of a sudden if we bomb Syria, bomb Iraq, and we bomb ISIS, we're going to get rid of this ideology – we're not." The Pegida leaders highlight their multicultural approach, but their inflammatory anti-Islamic rhetoric suggests otherwise. "If you look at the ideology of Islam and you look at the ideology of Nazism they are exactly the same side of the same coin", says one member in an address at a rally. An inability to distinguish between Islam and Islamic extremism appears to characterise Robinson's approach, and little is offered in the way of a solution. Pegida's appearance in the UK reflects a worrying trend across Europe, and Robinson's extreme views show no signs of having mellowed." The transcript of the film is also available.
Refugee Innovation Challenge (RIC)
is a 12-week incubation program where participants, the RIC Fellows, focus on building game-changing solutions to problems in the context of mass migration.
Solidarity App allows you to make donations and support initiatives, without paying a cent. A small sum goes to the initiative of your choice every time you try a free new app or game from Solidarity App. Discover our campaigns helping refugees, cleaning the environment, defending animals rights or supporting a zone in disaster relief.
HOW DOES IT WORK?
Syria's Climate-Fueled Conflict, In One Stunning Comic Strip - How climate change helped spark a bloody civil war.
This comic strip was published by Mother Jones in May 2014.
Last updated November 12, 2016
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