OUR STORY

The idea of Displaced Collective was sparked by a wonderfully animated young person who, on a breezy summer’s day, lyricized about building a space for young people like them in the West Midlands to justchill. It seemed both simple and powerful in that moment to commit to working together to carve out a space for young people that are navigating such complex and hostile systems designed to deplete and divide us, to just chill and be together in joy and in resistance. So, young people, (ex)charity workers, medics, academics, activists, writers, artists and educators came together to bring this young person’s idea to fruition. 

We first discussed this idea with a local arts charity. With no hesitation, this charity (with the most generous people ever) offered us their space and they have since consistently shared their time, resources, energy, guidance and love with Displaced Collective to help us sustain a weekly space for young people to chill and collectivise communities.

We had been running for over two years and in this time we went through several changes and challenges, and we made countless mistakes. To name a few, we tried to be anti-racist and non-hierarchical, only to replicate racist practices and hierarchies that we encountered in charities and other workplaces. We provided advocacy support on a voluntary basis, which caused burnout in members and disappointment to young people. We hired a freelance worker without having the infrastructure to support them. Again and again, we skipped the groundwork that is needed to be and move as a collective. We have restarted again in 2026 as a response to the growing hostility and widespread racism against people on the move.

We have started and restarted and re-restarted our work many times. Now we’re going back to basics. That is to say we’re going back to being a place and space for young people to chill. We are working within our present individual and collective capacity to host a monthly chill-space for young people. We are experimenting on how to be a collective in practice, not just in name. We are structured as a committee of a majority of young people with experiences of displacement and migration. There is no leadership in our collective, but there are ‘elders’ to advise and guide. We have informally assigned ourselves roles, but as we grow and learn and our friendships deepen, what we do in the collective will change as we change. We are opening up to relinquishing the impulse to control everything, and to instead embrace and practice improvisation.

We want to thank all of our friends that have been a part of our story. Thank you to our immensely talented and loving friend who built and designed this website. Thank you to everyone who joined us for days, weeks, months or years; your presence is felt and deeply appreciated. Our collective would not be around today if it wasn’t for each person that gave it their love, time and care - thank you.

A NOTE ON LANGUAGE

Members of our collective are figuring out their feelings about the language and state categories of asylum seekers, refugees and migrants; language and categories that have either been doused in hatred to fortify violent borders and withhold necessary resources or wielded in service of resistance struggles and solidarity against racism and border violence. We stand strongly and unequivocally in solidarity with people across the world that are refugees, migrants and seeking asylum. At the same time, we at Displaced Collective largely refer to people having had experiences of displacement and migration so that we can underscore the critical experience that ties together the young people that Displaced Collective is for, while also giving young people space and time to experiment and exist outside of these categories in whatever way they want to.