A free online training for staff and volunteers who are interested in learning about refugee and migrant finance.

The session will primarily focus on those with refugee status and asylum seeker status. It will give practitioners an insight into the formal/informal ongoing interactions that individuals have with the financial systems in settlement, home, transit, and 3rd Countries. Intersectional themes covered include:

indebtedness
debt
mental health and debt
informal lending networks
financial capability
poverty trap/debt trap
“friend in the community"
marginalised groups

The training will briefly cover the behavioural economics and psychology of those making financial decisions. It will also present several strategic recommendations to mitigate financial exclusion.

This event has been organised by Voluntary Action Sheffield and Migration Yorkshire, and will be delivered by Josh Aspden.

Josh is currently a Resettlement Policy Officer at East Midlands Council and ad-hoc Refugee and Migrant Financial Inclusion consultant. He previously worked for Shabaka as a Technical Lead: Research Evidence and Learning on the USAID-funded Switchboard project on diaspora humanitarian action. He specialises in refugee and diaspora finance and has research interests in Latin and Central American Diaspora Humanitarian initiatives. He holds an MA in Humanitarian Action, he has worked as a Financial Inclusion Officer at Nottingham and Nottinghamshire Refugee Forum. A dual national British-Ecuadorian and international adoptee, Josh has lived a significant period overseas and has future ambitions of pursuing a Ph.D. on the behavioural economics of refugee finance. He speaks English, Spanish, and Portuguese, has a working knowledge of French and is currently learning Estonian. Josh is happy to connect on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshua-aspden-0730423b/)

An Overview of Refugee and Migrant Finance