Dr Eleanor Cotterill

I am a Human Geographer based in the School of Geography and Planning at Cardiff University. Working directly with stateless individuals, my research aims to understand everyday experiences of statelessness; thinking beyond the status as a legal conundrum and conceptualising statelessness as a complex political, social, and cultural status rooted in the geographical everyday. My research reveals the routine social injustices stateless communities encounter, including access to legal services, healthcare and education, the consequences of these injustices (mental health) and how individuals endure this situation in the UK.

I am also interested in the design and practice of creative research methods to conduct ethnographic research, exploring how creative, participatory research methodologies can be ethically utilised with vulnerable populations. My current research utilises and examines scrapbooking as a form of slow elicitation with stateless individuals.

Dr Eleanor Cotterill website

Fundación CEPAIM - Acción Integral con Migrantes

Fundación Cepaim's main mission is the provision of comprehensive support to migrants, asylum seekers, stateless persons, as well as nationals, in order to promote social cohesion and fight poverty and social exclusion. Through cooperation with public institutions, private actors and stakeholders, its goal is to achieve an inclusive, diverse and multicultural society, and to enhance communications and relationships between individuals with different social and cultural backgrounds. It is inspired by the principles of equality and non discrimination, cultural diversity, social justice, solidarity, and social transformation. There are different fields where Fundación Cepaim implements its activities focusing on the enhancement of an inclusive society: reception and international protection, employment, youth and family support, community-based development, equality and non discrimination, international cooperation, housing, interculturality and rural development. Its advocacy work aims to promote research, training, and to raise awareness and achieve social advancements in the fields of migration, social and residential exclusion, social vulnerability and cooperation with developing countries.
Fundación Cepaim are part of the International Protection National Reception System which includes beneficiaries and applicants of stateless status in Spain, and it offers them accommodation and cover their basic needs while affording them free legal and psychological aid and interpretation, and the assistance of social workers in their pathway to integration in Spain.

Fundación CEPAIM - Acción Integral con Migrantes website

Haqqi Bahram

Haqqi Bahram is a PhD candidate at the Institute for Research on Migration, Ethnicity and Society (REMESO) of Linköping University, Sweden. His research focuses on the legacy of statelessness and identity formation in post-statelessness and forced displacement contexts. His work engages experiences of stateless Syrian Kurds in Europe to study stateless standpoints and activism, social and political inclusion and transitional justice. Haqqi teaches on citizenship, exclusion and conflict and he has previously worked as a senior officer on humanitarian aid and development programmes implemented in Syria.

Humanrights.ch - Menschenrechte Schweiz

Humanrights.ch is a Swiss non-profit organization founded in 1999 with the main aim of gathering and providing information, raising public awareness, monitoring state action and counselling on human rights issues and the human rights situation in Switzerland. Today, the online-platform www.humanrights.ch is one of the most important independent information-platforms for international human rights in the German-speaking world. Humanrights.ch has particular expertise in coordinating and publishing reports and opinions on the human rights situation in Switzerland and has contributed to a number of reports to UN and Council of Europe monitoring bodies. In collaboration with ENS, the Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion as well as Terre des hommes Foundation, humanrights.ch has submitted a joint submission on statelessness to the Human Rights Council for the third Universal Periodic Review of Switzerland in 2017. Humanrights.ch further offers a legal aid program for persons in the penal system and coordinates a network for victims of racial discrimination. Finally, humanrights.ch is very well connected as a founding member of the NGO Platform Human Rights Switzerland, a network of over 80 Swiss NGOs working in the field of human rights.

Humanrights.ch - Menschenrechte Schweiz website

Information Legal Centre

Information Legal Centre (ILC) is a non-governmental organisation founded in 2002. It continued the work of the Legal Centre of International Rescue Committee, American humanitarian organisation, which started its work in Slavonski Brod, Croatia, in 1998. Our purpose is to promote and protect human rights and civil liberties, to strengthen society of tolerance and to provide direct services to the most vulnerable members of our society. In order to accomplish our aims, ILC provides professional services, including free legal aid and protection against discrimination, to the marginalised groups with special emphasis on members of Roma national minority, stateless persons and persons at risk of statelessness, elderly persons, women, disabled persons and victims and witnesses of criminal offences.

Information Legal Centre website

International Foundation for Health and Environmental Protection “Region Karpat” (NEEKA)

International Foundation for Health and Environment Protection "Region Karpat" (the abbreviation in Hungarian is NEEKA) is the international charitable organization, created in 1996 and registered in 1998 as a legal entity in Zakarpattya region, Ukraine. Since that time NEEKA contributed to the development of health protection, medical assistance to the population, social protection for persons with vulnerabilities, and as one of the key direction -free legal aid and partially social assistance to such vulnerable groups as asylum seekers, refugees, stateless persons and Roma people. Our NGO has a well-established cooperation and relationship with government bodies at the local and central levels, as well as with other civil society institutions involved into this scope.

International Foundation for Health and Environmental Protection “Region Karpat” (NEEKA) website

Jesus Tolmo

Jesus Tolmo practised as a lawyer for more than 25 years. Formerly, he worked as coordinator of the Legal, International and Advocacy department in Fundación Cepaim, and as a Consultant on statelessness for the UNHCR representation for the Nordic and Baltic countries. Currently, he is a PhD candidate at the University of Murcia, his research focuses on statelessness in the case of non-recognized states or with limited recognition. 

JustRight Scotland

JustRight Scotland is a leading social justice organisation founded by human rights lawyers in Scotland. It uses the law to defend and extend people’s rights by providing direct legal advice to people who would otherwise struggle to access justice.  JRS operates 4 national centres of legal excellence, which provide the only specialist legal advice in these areas across Scotland: (i) the Scottish Refugee & Migrant Centre; (ii) the Scottish Women's Rights Centre; (iii) the Scottish Anti-Trafficking & Exploitation Centre; and (iv) the Scottish Just Law Centre.  Through these centres, it designs social justice collaborations which deliver legal advice in the areas of immigration, gender-based violence, anti-trafficking, and disability and trans discrimination.

JustRight Scotland website

Katerina Komita

Katerina Komita is a lawyer before the Supreme Court of Greece specialized in human rights. From 2011 until 2021, she had been a member of the Legal Unit of the Greek Council for Refugees (GCR) specialized in vulnerable cases. In this context, for seven years she had been the coordinator of the multidisciplinary project Prometheus (provision of holistic services for the recovery from the consequences of torture suffered by asylum seekers and refugees on a legal, social, psychological and medical level). She has contacted the ENS research Statelessness Index-Greece [years 2019, 2020 and 2021 (ongoing)]. Additionally, she has more than 15 years of experience as a journalist.

Kirkayak Kultur Arts and Nature Association

Kırkayak Kültür, since its establishment in 2011, organizes social, cultural and art activities to help empower socially and culturally disadvantaged groups at risk, and to integrate society in dialogue and solidarity to end prejudices and discrimination against these groups. Besides, Kırkayak Kültür carries out social, cultural and art activities; studies on humanitarian issues caused by political and social circumstances in the Middle East in addition to existing issues as immigration, being a refugee, disadvantaged groups and cultures, also findings are presented to people nationwide and worldwide.

Kırkayak Kültür currently hosts its studies in two separate locations in Gaziantep: “Kırkayak Kültür Art Center" and "Kırkayak Kültür - Center for Migration and Cultural Studies".

Kirkayak Kultur Arts and Nature Association website