The first discussions about this project happened during the Gira por la Vida in 2021 and January 2022 marked the real beginning of our collective. Our core group currently consists of around 12 persons from different countries in Europe and Abya Yala ¹ (Latin America) with a larger circle of people chipping in with specific tasks.

We come from different political struggles, ranging from environmental topics to decolonial struggles and from queer-feminist fights to the campaigns for Freedom of Movement. Some of us have been working on ships professionally for years, others have little sailing experience.

In October 2022 we have founded the association Bildung und Solidarität e.V (Education and Solidarity) and its been recognized as a non-profit organization in January 2023. All our members are volunteers. Our statutes can be found here in German and in English (non-binding translation).

We have consciously chosen the path of networking and organizing with other activists from many parts of the world right from the start. Therefore most of our meetings are online but we hold physical meetings 3-4 times a year.
To make our online meetings as accesible as possible we hold them at hours which are during daytime in the timezones of Abya Yala as well as Europe. We work together with a translation collective provide simultaneos translation when needed.

It is our conviction that this is the only way to build an organisation that is shaped by the different perspectives of all and does not only find answers from a European perspective. Regardless of this, the most of the people who are currently active in our collective come from European background.

1. Abya Yala is one of many pre-Columbian names for the territory known to most people as America. Today the word is used by many indigenous peoples to highlight the existence of the people and the territory before the arrival of European colonizers.