Sexual health and relationships among recently resettled refugees and asylum seekers

Intercultural understanding on sexual health and relationships among recently resettled refugees and asylum seekers

Together with a team from New Routes Integration and Terrence Higgins Trust, UNESCO Chair members Esther Priyadharshini, Anna Robinson-Pant, Catherine Jere, Burcu Evren and Chris Millora, organised a one-day conference at Wesley’s Chapel in London on 16 July for NGOs, practitioners and activists working with refugees and asylum seekers.

The opening presentation was given by Maurice Wren, Chief Executive of the Refugee Council, who welcomed this initiative to develop new spaces and approaches for exploring differing understandings of health and gender relations. Workshop sessions explored the impact of translation, language and terminology; how sensitive cultural and personal reflections and assumptions can be shared and debated; how knowledge (legal, cultural, religious) is differently valued and prioritised by diverse communities and how collaborative learning can be supported across multi-ethnic populations and grassroots organisations.

The day was focused on a resource for holding workshops in this area, developed and published by the team over the past year as part of a participatory action research project, and funded by the UEA Impact Accelerator Fund. Feedback from the fifty plus conference participants was overwhelmingly positive, commenting that it was a ‘great opportunity to mix/collaborate between practitioners and researchers’, ‘awesome facilitators’, ‘smooth collaborative work with UEA and New Routes’ and ‘a great deal of learning has taken place that, importantly, can be put in to practice on the ground’.  

Read the workshop guidance publication and further information about the project