Top 5 things you can do using our new website

Blog
Jan Brulc, Head of Communications, Operations & Development, European Network on Statelessness
/ 3 mins read

Even before the full extent of the pandemic was laid bare, it was clear that digital communication will become more important in helping us achieve our mission. ENS took this as an opportunity to double-down on our new digital strategy and its main objectives to drive change through increasing awareness, working together with stateless people and mobilising key audiences to act. To help us do this we completely redesigned our website.

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New website proofs
Getting the message across. A selection of different proofs from our website design process.

Our website was always central in helping us raise awareness about the effects that statelessness has on the lives of hundreds of thousands of people living in Europe. Though we together with our partners and members made great strides in increasing understanding of the issue, European countries still have a long way to go in ending statelessness. As part of our new digital strategy we set ourselves a task to realise different ways to translate this increased awareness into real change and greater protection for stateless people on the ground. Starting the development work in May, amid the first lockdown, it quickly became obvious that the new website will be even more central if we want to get supporters to take action.

The challenge was to reorganise eight years’ worth of content posted on our old website, to capture the incredible growth and diversity of our network which now includes over 150 members in 41 countries, to better reflect the issues faced by stateless people and to provide a platform to mobilise our supporters for change.

Six-months later, with help from graphic design agency Wave.coop and not-for-profit web collective GreenNet – the team that helped us launch our Statelessness Index - we launched our new website. It’s packed with new features, simple navigation and different ways to get involved in our work. To help you explore the site, here are the top five things you can do using our website:

#1: Swot-up on issues facing stateless people in Europe

We’ve split our work across seven different areas in simple, accessible language. Each area outlines the main challenges faced by stateless people, how they are affected and what needs to change. Each area also directs you to more in-depth information, publications and other web resources like the StatelessJourneys and Statelessness Index, for a range of audiences including lawyers, policymakers, researchers, practitioners and others working on the issue.

#2: Search through our comprehensive online library

We moved over 600 ENS publications from our old website and reorganised them, so that it’s easier to find resources by country, area of work, year of publication and type of resource. The Updates & Resources part of the website includes interviews, news items, blogs, reports, submissions, position papers, briefings, toolkits and videos. On top of that you can use the related topics to further explore and dig deeper into specific issues.   

#3: Find out about our work & our Europe-wide membership

Over the last eight years ENS has grown from a fledgling project into a dynamic organisation with a dedicated staff team of eight and a committed membership spanning 41 European countries. You can learn more about our activities and impact so far, our future plans, our staff working in the Secretariat and our board of trustees. You call also find out more about our diverse membership and browse their profiles by country and type of work they do.

#4: Help us end statelessness!

You can explore different ways you can get involved in our work by joining our network, getting regular updates or by supporting our work through a donation. We will be adding new campaign actions in 2021 which will give our supporters an opportunity to get even more involved in our campaigning work.

#5: Find legal advice and support if you are stateless

Finally, for stateless people, our new site provides important information about where you can get support. While we can’t provide legal advice directly, many of our members can. If you need advice, you can search by country to find out who to get in touch with, in your area. Please note that in most cases, our members can only assist people who are currently in the country, or who have a specific question related to that country.

We hope you enjoy the new site and find it useful for your work. Please help us spread the word by tweeting or sharing this on Facebook.

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