Our Change Makers 2023 Report is Live

The Change Makers Project is a 5-year collaboration between ACH and RAMP, funded by Comic Relief, which aims to identify strategic opportunities with the wider refugee sector to influence city-level and regional strategies.

This year, we took a fresh approach to our research, conducting an in-depth qualitative study of the barriers and enablers to integration. We employed creative, co-productive, ethnographic methods to amplify the lived experience voices of refugees, asylum seekers, and other displaced migrants (or ‘citizens-in-waiting’ as we have referred to them).

The research involved 49 participants representing 17 countries of origin. In addition to this, we also interviewed around 20 people working in the refugee support sector, including welcome hub leaders, volunteers, ESOL teachers, housing officers, support workers, and career advisors, many of whom also come from a migrant background. To achieve diversity of participation, specialized focus groups were conducted with women, young people (18-25), and people who identify as LGBT+.

Diversity was important, not only in the kinds of people we engaged with, but in our research methodology. Alongside walking-based interviews and language-specific focus groups, we organised a visual art workshop to bring alternative forms of expression into the report. Participants were invited to create a collage with the theme of ‘hope’ in mind. The workshop resulted in 19 evocative pieces of art which feature on the front cover of the report, as well as throughout each chapter.

The research formed 5 key chapters to establish the enablers and barriers to integration in Housing, Health & Wellbeing, Education & Training, and Employment & Enterprise. We then gave several recommendations for each of these fields, followed by case studies of best practice.

This report has demonstrated the importance of listening, actively and democratically, to those who we work with. It is a call to action, but also the beginning of an ongoing conversation between service providers, stakeholders, community organisations, and most importantly, citizens-in-waiting themselves.

For more information about this research please email paul.hassan@ach.org.uk