In November 2025, we held a joint conference in Berlin with Statefree on Statelessness and Innovation: Building Power Through Collective Action, bringing together over 100 participants with lived and learned expertise on statelessness for three days of learning and exchange. We caught up with Christiana Bukalo, founder of Statefree and ENS trustee, to hear her reflections on an energizing and fulfilling few days.
Firstly, what were your personal highlights from the conference?
My personal highlight might sound abstract, but it really was so(!) tangible throughout the event: the warmth, the joy, and the respect for each other that carried us through the conference. It sounds so exaggerated but to me it truly felt as if we had found the perfect formula for collaboration and learning at the same time. And also the range we were able to create - between technical content, inspirational keynotes, and performances.
But if I had to pick one “item” on the agenda, it was probably the poem with which we opened the conference, presented by the wonderful Lynn Al-Khatib.
It’s been wonderful to watch Statefree’s development over the past five years since you joined ENS, and we hugely appreciated you proposing that we work together to organise the conference. Our time together in Berlin felt like such a powerful example of community leadership and ensuring lived expertise is at the forefront of changemaking – building on this momentum, how do you see Statefree, ENS and other sector allies continuing to drive forward change both in Germany and across Europe, and where do you want us to be in five years?
When I started this work, I was hoping that we would be done in five years and that Statefree wouldn’t be needed as an organisation anymore. I now understand how naive that was, but at the same time, I will not back down from aiming for a future in which our work might still serve the purpose of maintaining our achievements while also allowing us to look back at tangible change in people’s lives.
When I think about continuing this work, I hope that we learn to enhance our capacity to collaborate and also focus on what is really important. It is easy to get distracted and get lost in the theoretical thinking around what needs to change and why. I find it important to hold ourselves accountable for how our “thinking” actually changes the “living” of stateless people.
That is way easier said than done, and that is exactly what makes it so valuable to do this work together with those affected by it. There’s no one who would ever be more impatient about the change - and this impatience should be our driving force.
During the conference, many tools and resources were shared which could help stateless people across Europe access their rights, including our Identification Toolkits (recently launched for Germany) and Statefree’s Digital Case Assistant. Are there any particular tools, including Statefree’s, shared at the conference which you would want others working on statelessness to know about?
Of course, tools like the Case Assistant and others that aim to support stateless people in their process of identification and recognition are extremely important. At the same time, I think there is a tool that isn’t usually viewed as one but is incredibly important - and actually the basis that makes the effective development of such tools even possible - and that is the ability to listen. To listen to what is actually needed and to keep listening in order to iterate on what you’ve built.
Tools matter because we need tangible and pragmatic solutions, but those solutions are only as valuable as our ability to make sure they truly align with what stateless people need.
The importance of listening to the understanding that comes with lived experience is incredibly important and was emphasised during the conference.
We are working in a particularly challenging time of diminishing resources, shrinking civic space, growing racism and anti-migrant sentiment, let alone the personal challenges that individuals we work with are facing on a daily basis. How do we build on the momentum from the conference to navigate the road ahead?
To be honest, I currently very much struggle to decide whether I’m hopeful or cynical.
Probably it’s both, and maybe that’s good. There is no “one way” to deal with this situation, but moments such as this conference help to boost not just energy but also hope and a more specific understanding of where there is opportunity. It is important that all the conversations, ideas, and discussions don’t get lost in time, but that we hold ourselves accountable for following up and following through.
Statefree, for example, has decided to use the momentum of the conference in the German context to launch the first nationwide Community of Practice on Statelessness - bringing together researchers, practitioners, decision-makers, and other actors from the field to regularly discuss cases of statelessness while also proactively testing and piloting the Case Assistant. This doesn’t change racism or the current sentiment, but it allows us to focus on what really matters without being distracted by these developments.
What keeps you feeling joyful or hopeful in your work?
Part of it comes from my upbringing. I was lucky to witness parents who managed to uphold a joyful spirit throughout my childhood, despite everything they - and we as a family - went through.
What also helps me is the space we co-create with each other. At Statefree, we’ve built a space where we can show up as our authentic selves. It allows us to move beyond superficial boundaries between how we want to feel and how we actually feel. I can experience hope and joy one day, and sadness or despair the next, and still know that the team will understand and make room for both. And that also makes it clear that at the end its manly people who can help us feel joy or hope whether it’s the team or community members or partners.
