Celebrating 6 years of Asian Voices Europe
Over the past 6 years, Asian Voices Europe has grown. From meeting up as an ad hoc peer support group on Google Meet during the COVID-19 pandemic, officially registering as a charity organization in the Netherlands, to becoming the first Asian-run organization to consult the European Commission on anti-racism, our work has developed into a permanent project.
All this is made possible by the quiet persistence of our volunteers. From Belgium, Hungary, Germany, the Netherlands, to Sweden, dozens of us have put in countless hours strategizing, researching, and advocating to make anti-Asian racism visible at the policy level, using evidence and data-based approaches to make the issue tangible to policymakers. At the same time, we’ve been presenting our findings at conferences, panels, seminars, media interviews, and at community events across Europe.
With your support, we’ve made concrete steps in making anti-Asian racism visible, with the European Commission recognizing it as a standalone category of hate crimes in 2022. There’s much, much more work to be done ahead, especially with civic spaces shrinking across Europe, both financially and politically. But we remain hopeful. We’ve achieved the first step: identifying the problem. Next, we’ll find solutions.
Our Work
We began our work by evidencing the problem of anti-Asian racism, which remains largely underrepresented at national and European levels. The Survey Team’s data and analysis have been published by the Dutch Association of Anti-Discrimination Agencies, and shared with the European Commission, National Coordinators Against Discrimination and Racism, as well as fellow civil society and academic researchers. These were summarized into policy briefs highlighting calls to action.
Parallelly, we’re working on finding remedies to discrimination faced by Asian diasporas. Starting in 2021, we’ve partnered with the University of Amsterdam, Van Benthem & Keulen (Utrecht), and Mayer Brown (Düsseldorf/Frankfurt) to find legal solutions to defining, documenting, and reporting cases of racial discrimination. Since 2024, we’ve been collaborating with academics through the DAAD working group in Germany and the United States to research Asian identity, and on how to build allyships within the White, European societies we live in.
This wasn’t easy, with our volunteers and board changing over the years, due to personal and professional circumstances. Anti-racism work takes a toll on our mental health, and as a structurally unfunded organization (with our funding limited to specific projects, not personnel costs), we remain steadfast in our belief that the wellbeing of our people comes first, which is why our projects can take a while to become public. Our approach to placing people first will not change, with or without funding.
What’s next?
In the long-term, our goal remains the same: embedding anti-Asian racism within the structural anti-racism frameworks at the EU- and Member State- levels. Our work focuses on addressing racism as a structural and intersectional issue, rather than a matter of simple categorization. Until today, cases of discrimination against the Asian community are often swept into the general categories of “xenophobia”, “discrimination”, or “harassment”, instead of being aggregated on its own (“anti-Asian racism”). As of January 2026, only 6 out of 27 EU Member States have set forth concrete measures addressing anti-Asian racism.
Invisibility persists not only in data, but in policy implementation and anti-racist frameworks. In practical terms, this means that the Asian diaspora is left out of dedicated funding opportunities, limited in inclusion in public policy, and lacking general visibility. This is often caused by a gap in lived experiences versus missing data. This limits the ability to monitor patterns over time and design targeted interventions. Therefore, strengthening data collection is not only about recognition, but instead in translating meaningful systematic monitoring, accountability and effective policy responses across intersecting forms of inequality.
In 2026, we finally secured our first project grant from filia die frauenstiftung, a Hamburg-based women’s organization. Through the two-year RISE grant, we’re conducting poster workshops (coming to Berlin on May 29, 2026; Leipzig in 2027), creating a legal guidebook on reporting racialized sexual violence in Germany (in partnership with MeToo Asians e.V.), and creating a book centered on the Asian FLINTA* community together with award-winning illustrator Dayeon Auh.
You can also find us in-person at the European Parliament on June 23, online at the IMISCOE (International Migration Research Network) conference from June 29 - July 2. In August, we’re extending the DAAD-funded partnership hosted by Richard Lee (U. Minnesota). Additionally, we’re hosting a closed-doors Asian Diasporic Workshop this summer together with Sayaka Osanami Törngren (Malmö University) and Kimiko Suda (Humboldt-University Berlin), gathering Asian academic researchers and practitioners from across Europe and the Americas to bridge research and civil society action towards racial justice.
☺ Thank You ☺
It takes a village to raise a child, they say, and it’s taken a continent to get our work where it is today. From volunteers who contributed their expertise in the form of research, communications work, animations, illustrations, graphic design, advocacy, web development, typography (a special thanks to Jung Lee Foundry for our signature font!), we wouldn’t be here without the commitment and kindness they have shown.
We want to take this moment to thank everyone who has supported us in our work, including former board members, current and former volunteers, freelance contributors, and project partners. We also are grateful to communities, spaces, and platforms which have hosted us, including: #DiasporaVote!, Antidiskriminierungsstelle des Bundes (The Federal Anti-Discrimination Agency of Germany), Asian Persuasion, a.r.t.e.s. Graduate School for the Humanities Cologne, Auswärtiges Amt (The Federal Foreign Office of Germany), Generalitat de Catalunya (Government of Catalonia), the 5th Cultural Diversity, Migration, and Education conference (CDME), DAAD, Dutch Association of Anti-Discrimination Agencies, the European Network Against Racism (ENAR), the European Network of Equality Bodies (Equinet), the European Commission (and in particular, the office of Michaela Moua), encounters.hongkong, FIFPRO, Heizhaus Leipzig, Koï Magazine, Malmö Institute for Migration Studies, Migration Policy Group, Rijksbankens Jubileumsfond (the Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation), Undisciplined Knowledge at the University of Tübingen (UnKUT), and many, many more.
Lastly, we would like to thank our project funder, filia.die frauenstiftung, our donors, and everyone who’s pitched in along the way, from our first fundraiser to our Buy Me A Coffee.
As always, you can support us through our registered charity (“Stichting Asian Voices Europe”):
Buy Me A Coffee (Credit cards)
Bank transfers: NL32 BUNQ 2066 8351 37 (BIC: BUNQNL2AXXX)
🧡 Together, We Keep Building
We’re proud of what we’ve achieved together, but we know the road ahead is long and we need you with us. Whether it’s sharing our posts, forwarding our newsletter, joining AVE CLUB, making a donation, or just checking in! You’re part of this story.
More updates to come soon. Until then, thank you for walking with us. ✊
– The AVE Team
Author: Hyunjung, Jiye
Editor: Jiye
Image: Asian Voices Europe
