2% of respondents to the 2019 Eurobarometer on discrimination in the EU belong to a minority in terms of skin colour. In total numbers, this translates to around 10 million of the EU’s population. People of colour face many obstacles in their everyday lives, while often also lacking political representation on local, national and EU level. Many have little knowledge or interest in the role of political institutions or their representatives. They discredit the competences of public authorities or their legitimacy to support and protect them. This attitude is caused by obstacles resulting from discrimination and racist behaviour. People of colour do not feel heard or that their voice matters. They feel misunderstood and not represented. 

These are just a few of the issues Céline Fabrequette observed during her engagement in diaspora youth organisations over the last six years. As a response to this, in June 2018 Céline Fabrequette started the #DiasporaVote! programme to promote the potential of the European-African diaspora and encourage its civil engagement during the 2019 European Parliament elections. In the new election cycle the programme is expanded to reach all communities of colour in the EU. #DiasporaVote! wants to give a voice to as many people as possible, especially those who lack a political representation because of their skin colour.

#DiasporaVote! organizes meetings between civil society and the public sector at local, national and EU level together with training on the functioning of the EU and political participation. The participants of our activities develop understanding of the functioning of the EU Institutions. They build their capacity on EU policy-making and learn how to influence the involved actors, including on how to interact with political structures at the EU and national level. This contributes to the EU’s objective to engage more and better with its citizens. But most of all it creates a feeling of belonging to the European citizenship for people of colour in the EU. #DiasporaVote! makes special effort to educate and engage diaspora youth with EU politics by designing specific programmes to increase their capacity and involvement in EU policy-making. 

The #DiasporaVote! is a grassroots movement uniting activists of colour in the EU. This bottom-up approach helps to address the needs of the local community in the EU-wide discussion. To implement its activities, #DiasporaVote! collaborates with youth and non-youth organisations across the EU.

We currently have several projects in pipeline and we appreciate all the help we get. If you want to collaborate with us or support our project in other ways let us know by email to [email protected].