This is a three-year project which aims to generate institutional change and increased gender sensitivity in the treatment of refugee and asylum-seeking women, both by harnessing existing research and by allowing the women themselves to identify the problems they currently face through community-led action research. This project will enable refugee and asylum-seeking women in London to design and deliver a training program for professionals working with refugee and asylum seeking women.
Research increasingly suggests that there is a need for professionals and service providers working with refugee and asylum seeking young women to have a deeper understanding of gender related violence and trauma and how this in turn results in the need for gender specific provisions. According to Asylum Aid, there is currently a significant gap in practice in how professionals engage with refugee and asylum seeking women. IARS’ training programme will raise awareness of the impact of gender-related trauma and violence and lobby for gender sensitive treatment of refugee and asylum seeking women.
This project is currently in progress. For news and updates as they happen, please follow our Project Coordinator's Twitter account.
To find out about the progress and day-to-day running of the project, go to our Tumblr to read our Project Coordinator's sessions diary.
If you are a refugee or asylum-seeking woman who would like to take part in a confidential interview to help achieve fairer treatment and share your experience, please contact h.challenger@iars.org.uk
- Empowering and giving a voice to young refugee women who rarely have the opportunity to influence the policies which affect them, to create a user-led, evidence base for policy making and training.
-
From these interviews we will develop a training program which will be delivered to professionals to encourage them to improve their practice. Experience and learning of involving refugee women in developing training programs will be shared with other refugee organisations through a toolkit.
