We just did our international Assembly: we talked the world over, chalked in New York. 

On July 25, 2025, a group of enthusiastic chalkers gathered on the sidewalk outside the Roosevelt Hotel in New York. In 2020–2025, NYC’s Roosevelt Hotel closed due to COVID losses, then sheltered 155,000+ migrants until June 2025. Owners (Pakistan gov’t) and tourists shun it for chronic deficits and needed renovations ($1B+ sale value); migrants were evicted as inflows dropped. It became its own ghost, symbolizing a city walling off from the world, leading to financial ruin. The task for DGI and its friends, as well as those wielding the chalk, was to reimagine what it would be like if we were to take matters into our own hands and create a welcoming centre for refugees and migrants. 

We hosted a hybrid format, allowing people from different countries to join online and converse with the chalkers on the pavement in New York. What emerged was a dynamic dialogue between pragmatic real-world solutions and unrestrained creative dreaming and design. Participating in this assembly were John and Goodie, who work in refugee camps in Kenya, Savitri from Earth Church in New York, who has worked in organising mutual aid for refugees, Miles and the chalkers in New York, and a whole breadth of DGI volunteers and friends from across the world. The design of our refugee centre was focused on care and granting agency to the refugees. It was to recognise the complex histories, cultures, skills, needs and desires of the people who find themselves displaced from their homes and thrown into foreign worlds. 

You can read more about what transpired here.