Who gets to name the problem? Reflections on self-advocacy workshop from Lesvos, Greece

What does it mean to support people on the move to advocate for themselves? It is a question that might sound straightforward until we begin to examine the power relations within humanitarian work itself. Who decides which problems deserve attention? Who determines how people’s experiences should be communicated? And what happens when the priorities of those directly affected do not fit neatly into an organisation’s plans?

Between 31 August and 8 September 2026, I had the opportunity to explore these questions through a self-advocacy workshop in Lesvos, organised by Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) and Collective Aid. The workshop drew on MSF’s longstanding experience of working with affected communities through its Experts by Experience approach, which dates back to 2018. The experience reminded me that meaningful participation is not only about creating opportunities for people to speak and feel heard. It is also about recognising their knowledge, taking their priorities seriously and asking whether organisations are prepared to share power and make space for people to pursue the changes they want.

Starting from people’s own priorities

The project was led by Hana Ganji from MSF, drawing on her own and the organisation’s experience of working with people with lived experience. Collective Aid contributed its proximity to the community through its ongoing work with people on the move and provided the space for most sessions. Hala Qaseim, a Collective Aid volunteer, made communication possible through in-the-moment translation and mediation, and I led one of the advocacy sessions on behalf of Collective Aid.

Across the sessions, we explored three interconnected themes: storytelling, networking and advocacy. We discussed how experiences can be communicated to different audiences, how organisations and institutional structures operate, and what advocacy might look like in practice. The final session also brought together participants and guests from MSF’s Inclusive Innovation team, who listened to the stories, needs and requests of the participants.

Overall, twenty-three people took part in the project, but as is often the case in Lesvos, continuity was difficult when participants were transferred elsewhere or had other pressing commitments. Nevertheless, the discussions brought forward a range of priorities that extended far beyond the immediate provision of assistance.

Participants spoke about pushbacks and violence at the Greek border. Some described first-hand experiences of being pushed back by the Greek coast guard, including violence and the loss or destruction of personal belongings and phones. They also discussed degrading living conditions in the camp, inadequate services, poor housing infrastructure, and unsanitary conditions, including rats and pests.

These were not simply accounts of individual hardship. When people describe violence, lost belongings or unacceptable living conditions, they are identifying issues that demand political and institutional responses. Their experiences are essential to understanding the consequences of policies that are too often discussed without those who live through them.

The conversations also revealed a gap between experiencing displacement and understanding the institutions people encounter along the way. Many participants had little information about how the asylum system works, how to tell NGOs apart from government authorities, or what rights and support might be available to them. This reflects not a lack of individual capacity but a system that is deliberately opaque and difficult to navigate. Self-advocacy depends on more than expressing needs: it requires clear, accessible information about rights, about which institutions are responsible for what, and about the options available. Without this, it is much harder to know where to raise concerns, what can be challenged and who can be held accountable.

Participants also spoke about discrimination, racism, harassment and detention in Türkiye, as well as circumstances that had contributed to their journeys, including war, poverty and ethnic or religious violence. Listening to these accounts meant confronting the multiple pressures that shape movement across borders, rather than reducing migration to a single explanation.

Yet the conversations were not defined by suffering alone. Participants were clear about what they wanted for their futures.

Beyond assistance: the right to shape a future

One recurring issue was the lack of employment opportunities on Lesvos. Participants expressed a desire to work and become independent rather than remain dependent on state or humanitarian assistance. Many voiced frustration with the difficulties of integrating into Greek society, particularly the absence of meaningful support to find housing, learn the local language, and navigate life beyond the reception system.

These aspirations are relevant, exposing how dominant humanitarian discussions about people on the move can become so focused on immediate needs that they leave little room for people’s longer-term ambitions, skills and ideas about the lives they want to build. Support should rest on people’s own terms and address urgent needs without reducing people to those needs because wanting employment, stable housing, and independence is not a rejection of assistance but a demand for the conditions in which people can exercise greater control over their own lives.

The discussions also touched on the limits of integration support, including the HELIOS+ programme, whose reach and effectiveness MSF Greece has questioned. According to the latest AIDA report on Greece, by the end of April 2026, 2,576 people had enrolled in the programme, fewer than one in ten of those granted international protection in Greece during 2025 alone. 

These shortcomings take on a particular significance in a political climate that increasingly frames integration as an individual responsibility. Speaking in Parliament in September 2026, Greece’s Migration Minister, Thanos Plevris, defended cuts to benefits for people granted asylum, telling them to go to work or leave the country.

The contradiction is hard to ignore. Participants wanted to work and become independent, yet described limited job opportunities and inadequate support to secure housing and learn Greek. Wanting independence is not the same as being given a fair opportunity to achieve it. Employment and integration depend not only on personal motivation, but also on access to housing, language learning, decent work and adequate institutional support.

Participants did not need organisations to explain that employment, safe housing or protection from violence mattered. They identified the barriers affecting them, analysed the systems around them and articulated the changes they wanted to see. The challenge for organisations is to take that analysis seriously and let it shape advocacy.

Participation must change how organisations work

MSF’s Experts by Experience resources offer a useful starting point for reflecting on how people affected by crises can contribute their knowledge to advocacy and influence change. Similarly, PICUM’s 2025 guidance, Enabling the meaningful participation of migrants with precarious status, emphasises the importance of participation across decision-making processes and the need to examine the barriers that prevent it from being meaningful.

That means looking beyond who was in the room. Being invited to a workshop, sharing experiences or meeting an organisation’s representatives does not make participation meaningful in itself. We also need to ask what happens afterwards. Can participants shape the agenda? Are their priorities reflected in the activities? Do they have a say in how their experiences are communicated and what action follows?

These questions matter for all organisations, but especially for those whose work is grounded in solidarity, because good intentions do not dissolve unequal power relations. Organisations often control the resources, language, schedules and platforms through which advocacy happens. Even when we aim to support people’s agency, we can end up privileging our own institutional ways of working and our assumptions about what advocacy should look like.

I was reminded of this when reflecting on the session I personally led for Collective Aid. Looking back, I think it was too technical and not participatory enough. Rather than concentrating so much on explaining Collective Aid’s advocacy work, I could have created more space for participants to work together on issues they had identified themselves. For example, by developing an advocacy message or co-writing a text addressed to a relevant institution.

That would not have meant setting aside the knowledge or responsibilities of advocacy organisations. It would have meant using them differently: as resources for a process shaped more directly by participants’ own priorities.

Learning to make space

The first round also showed the importance of allowing enough time for participation to develop. The compressed schedule limited how far we could explore some themes, particularly storytelling. Participants also raised complex topics such as gender equality, which deserved attention and changed the planned structure of the sessions. This was a good reminder that a participatory process cannot be entirely predetermined. At the same time, responding to emerging priorities requires enough flexibility to give them the space they deserve without losing opportunities to explore other themes.

Accessible communication was equally important. Translation and mediation were indispensable to making the sessions possible, but they also placed substantial demands on the person supporting the discussions. If we want people to participate meaningfully, interpretation and mediation must be treated as central parts of the process, with adequate time, people and support.

None of this is a reason to dismiss the first round. It is a reason to design future sessions better: with more time for storytelling, more opportunities for participants to shape activities, and the practical support needed to make communication accessible and sustainable. Participation requires resources, continuity and a willingness to adapt – not simply an invitation.

From listening to accountability

Self-advocacy should never become a way for institutions to transfer responsibility onto people already navigating restrictive systems and structural barriers. No one should have to tell their stories repeatedly, make themselves visible or become skilled advocate to have their rights respected.

The responsibility of organisations remains. We must continue to challenge harmful policies and dehumanising narratives, use the access and resources available to us, and make sure that our advocacy reflects the priorities of the people most affected. Supporting self-advocacy and pursuing institutional advocacy are not competing approaches; they should reinforce each other, while leaving people free to decide how, when and whether they want to take part.

People directly affected by migration policies and humanitarian responses possess knowledge that organisations cannot acquire from reports and assessments alone. Recognising this means more than listening respectfully: it requires being prepared to reconsider our assumptions, adapt our methods and share influence over the decisions that affect people’s lives.

For organisations like ours working in humanitarian response and advocacy, this calls for a shift in perspective. The question is not only whether people have been invited to participate, but whether their participation has changed anything concretely: the priorities we set, the way we understand a problem, the actions we take and the accountability we accept.

Listening is an essential first step. Whether it becomes something more depends on what organisations do with what they have heard, and whether participants are told. Meaningful participation begins when people’s knowledge and experience are recognised as expertise and when that recognition can translate into influence, accountability and action.

Words by Massimo Maria Putti, with contributions and feedback from workshop participants, and the Collective Aid team.