Reflecting Back on 2025 - Looking Ahead to 2026.
Updated: Mar 7
This piece is based on two interviews Radhika held with SolidariTee's CEO, Alexa Netty. Looking backwards, looking forwards, they explore the significance and importance of movements like SolidariTee in today's political context. This is a special publication for our annual Week of Action, 2nd - 8th February. Follow our socials to see more!
I'm Radhika, a second-year Economics and Politics student at the University of Bristol and Team Lead for SolidariTee Bristol. During my time at uni, I've studied migration and refugees, leading to my passion for the cause, which encouraged me to start the Bristol branch at SolidariTee. I've volunteered at SolidariTee for nearly a year now, and it's been one of the most enriching experiences I've had at university. I've loved meeting like-minded people (with our team growing to over 30 volunteers) and being able to make a real impact with our work. I look forward to continuing to volunteer with Soli!
At the beginning of 2026, I spoke with Alexa Netty, volunteer CEO of SolidariTee, about SolidariTee’s vision for the year, picking up from an interview with her in April 2025. Reflecting on the charity’s work, aims, and student-led approach makes one realise how important the work of this student-led organisation is. At a point in time where Alexa noted we’re seeing “more explicit hostility than ever”* with racist riots in the UK, ICE in the US, and new laws in Greece, but also more efforts and unity against this hostility with more than 1000 applications to join the team, it’s an "interesting [and key] juncture.”
This week (2nd-8th February 2026) is the Week of Action, which is the focal point in SolidariTee’s year, designed to “unite people and build momentum by doing something really cohesive.” As a Team Lead at Bristol, I’ve had the experience of seeing my team come together and take initiative at this time of the year to organise events, both to raise funds and awareness. Seeing team members get involved to put on a fundraising club night at the end of the week and an academic talk to spread awareness has been wonderful! Similarly, seeing other university teams putting on amazing events makes me truly feel part of a larger movement.
Also upcoming is SolidariTee’s Annual Conference on 21st March, a space “where people can continue to learn about and express their ideas around ways that we can better support displaced people, a space of togetherness.” It’s also a rare space that’s not exclusively academic but accessible to everyone, making us as students feel able to participate and contribute. The Conference is organised entirely by a small group of volunteers and, as Alexa pointed out, is a voluntary activity where all attendees are choosing to spend their free time on a weekend, making it all the more meaningful while also putting an “onus on us to make it a space of community.” For me, the Conference demystifies the language and rhetoric around migration, and, as a student, being able to hear from and interact with prominent speakers and individuals in the field is an incredible opportunity.
Another significant element of SolidariTee (as mentioned in the name) is the Tees designed by refugees that we sell to assist in our fundraising goals. I’ve found that wearing the tees on campus, whether at events or even to class, has always led to curiosity and given me an opportunity to talk about SolidariTee and our cause. They “provide an opportunity for people to wear their values in their daily lives. It's a powerful move to choose to stand in solidarity with refugees and displaced people, and a route to spark conversations about refugees.” Sometimes the best thing we can do as volunteers and activists is to start a conversation, and the tees act as a vehicle to it.
SolidariTee has always been youth-led, giving students and young people the chance to make a difference. In Alexa’s words:
often, students express a feeling of powerlessness in the face of injustice, a feeling that I, too, can remember before finding SolidariTee. It’s important at this crucial stage in life that we’re providing students and young people with a tangible, compassionate route to contribute to positive change and make a reality of their values. People across the world are persecuted for speaking up for fundamental rights. It's important that we use our relative safety and privilege to contribute meaningfully, and I think SolidariTee offers a vehicle to do just that.
For me, SolidariTee has been a way to make a difference, and it offers volunteers a chance to meaningfully contribute to a key issue in current times. By fundraising and even talking about such a critical issue, SolidariTee volunteers have been able to make a real impact. And as Alexa put it: “if students are calling for a movement to support refugees and displaced people, we would do well to keep that going".
* quotations refer to quotes from Radhika's interviews with Alexa in April 2025 and January 2026.
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