OPEN TO ALL PHD STUDENTS AT GOLDSMITHS, BIRKBECK, SOAS, COURTAULD INSTITUTE OF ART AND THE UNIVERSITIES OF SUSSEX, KENT, EAST ANGLIA AND ESSEX.

As the world adjusts to an unprecedented new era of social distancing in response to covid-19, NGOs and community activists are forced to consider new ways of securing their networks and defending the most vulnerable.

Participants will consider themselves as nodes of resilience in broader community and humanitarian networks and how access to ‘self-care’ is a deeply unequal experience. We will explore how pre-existing discourses of marginalisation and exclusion are replicated in this crisis.

From teachers and NGO workers in Greece, the US and the USA, participants will hear of the quotidian challenges of this reconfigured world and how partnership with communities is becoming increasingly essential

The series will be an interdisciplinary look at the international challenges of this ‘new normal’ and what part can humanities and arts scholars play in this reconfiguration.

1. Online Connection: Introductory Talk, Workshop and Networking

Wednesday 27 May |1400-1600

This webinar will introduce participants to the key ideas covered in the series:

How do we translate the popular concept of ‘self-care’ into meaningful strategies for safeguarding our own mental health and resilience in a situation that is likely to be relatively long term?

How do such strategies allow us to build the resilience of our communities?

How does the current context of social distancing echo/replicate longer term discourses of isolation in the UK?

How is the current pandemic negatively impacting on the most vulnerable communities?

What strategies are NGOs and others invested in these communities adopting to maintain and expand existing humanitarian networks?

To what extent can the university act as a site of community resilience?

The initial webinar will allow participants a chance to explain and explore their own reasons for signing up for the series as well as providing an opportunity for virtual networking between participants.

By the end of the webinar, participants will have a broad understanding of the aims of the series and a deeper awareness of their own participation in it.

This initial webinar will be hosted by Jade Lee, Director of Aurora Learning, UK Programme Lead for School Bus Project and CHASE PhD doctoral research currently waiting for her online viva!

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2. Unequal access to' Self-Care' and what this mean for community resilience

Wednesday 3 June |1400-1600

This webinar will consider the concept of ‘self-care’ in the context of lockdown and social distancing and how this relates to broader issues of inequality in the UK and within academia.

We will explore the idea of ourselves as nodes within a community network and the extent to which our own welfare matters both for our own sake and for building wider community resilience.
Drawing on research conducted by Vitae and other organisations, we will consider the role of mental health challenges within the PhD community and how these may have been exacerbated during the pandemic.
What does ‘self-care’ look like in this context for doctoral researchers?

This webinar is hosted by:

Jade Lee

Baljit Bains

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3. Othering Through Isolation and Exclusion: The Psychology of Space, the 'Hostile Environment', and Social Healthcare Movements in the UK

Wednesday 10 June |1400-1600

This webinar will explore how the idea of 'isolation' takes shape and is mobilised across political, psychological, and medical experiences.

We will first historicise the roots of pioneering social justice movements in healthcare policy, exploring how they intersect with contemporary migrants' healthcare experiences as a result of the UK's 'hostile environment' policies.
We will then look at how spaces of isolation and detention have a psychological impact, exploring psychoanalytic frameworks in relation to embodied experiences of material space in the modern world.
We will bring these threads together to look at the work of humanitarian organisations like MedAct, Medical Action for Global Security (https://www.medact.org/) and the Society for Social Medicine and Population Health (https://socsocmed.org.uk/) and how they seek to counteract ideologies of isolation and exclusion in healthcare.

This webinar is hosted by Dr Harriet Barratt, who is currently undertaking a research postdoc with the ART/DATA/HEALTH project at the University of Brighton (artdatahealth.org).

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4. Vulnerable Communities and the Cost of Isolation

Wednesday 17 June |1400-1600

The principle of physical distancing has led to many new measures that affect refugee communities uniquely, rendering already difficult and complex circumstances more critical. Displaced groups commonly live on the margins of society and have especially little support amid physical distancing requirements. This webinar will discuss power dynamics relating to examples of challenges physical distancing is causing

at the US-Mexico border

for displaced Syrian communities within and outside of their country, and

for asylum seekers in European hotspots

This webinar is hosted by Bethany Dill, European Projects Advisor at the School Bus Project.

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5. The Aegean Islands: A Case Study

Wednesday 24 June |1400-1600

Since early March, the spread of COVID-19 has disrupted the fragile model by which humanitarian networks operate on the Aegean Islands. Social distancing, along with other preventative public health measures brought in by the national and municipal governments have demanded quick responses on the part of all humanitarian actors.

In recent weeks, the Aegean’s humanitarian networks of NGOs, local populations and refugee communities have been stress-tested for resilience and adaptability. Meanwhile, the combination of massive overcrowding in refugee camps and ill-equipped island hospitals has added an extra layer of urgency, with fears of a health crisis following an outbreak of COVID-19 in any of the island camps.

In the webinar, we will cover:

‘How did we get here?’ - 4 years of humanitarian action on the Aegean Islands, in review

Public health in refugee camps’ - Tailoring the government's COVID-19 response for camp contexts

‘Closed camps’ - How to meet needs and remotely monitor the situation inside closed camps

‘Solidarity and community’ - how NGOs are supporting each other with aid and human resources

'Community supports community’ - re-designing services to be run by those they serve

#LeaveNoOneBehind: strategies for digital campaigning in the age of social-distancing

By the end of this webinar, you’ll have an overview of the unique problems facing humanitarian networks in the Aegean and an understanding of innovative responses underway right now.

The webinar is hosted by Jacob Warn, Director of Action for Education in Greece.

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6. Building Humanitarian Networks Across Borders: A Case Study of ‘Action for Education’ and the Aegean Islands.

Wednesday 1 July 1400-1600

For the past 4 years, the NGO Action for Education has run community centres and education spaces for children and young adults on the Aegean Islands of Chios and Samos. Now, these centres that provide a critical space for emergency relief and psychosocial support are closed.

But with a humanitarian and health crisis impending in the Aegean’s refugee camps, grassroots NGOs such as Action for Education are finding new and innovative ways of maintaining and growing networks digitally. These solutions are being tried and tested in the field, with the aim to adapt, respond and thrive in an unstable context.

In this webinar, we will cover:

‘Action for Education’ - one NGO’s model of non-formal education for refugee children and youth

‘Europe Must Act’ - digital advocacy and networking with NGOs across Greece

‘A split team’ - managing staff inside and outside the refugee camp

‘Economies of lockdown’ - how grant-making and grantees negotiate the impact of COVID-19

‘While the sun shines’ - a rare opportunity for organisational growth, reflection and learning

‘What can I do? Q&A’ - put your questions to the host and discuss how to get involved

By the end of this webinar, you’ll have a unique insight into one NGO’s response to COVID-19.

The webinar is hosted by Jacob Warn, Director of Action for Education in Greece.

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7. Universities as Sites of Community Resilience and International Solidarity: The Case of ‘UNIfied’

Wednesday 8 July |1400-1600

This webinar will begin by giving an overview of the UNIfied programme that was developed by the School Bus Project team as a way of building meaningful collaborations with UK universities that raises awareness and funds for education based refugee projects in Europe as well as providing meaningful opportunities for students to be part of (and expand) new and existing networks both internationally and in their own communities.

The webinar will consider:

The moral case for referencing the rights and needs of displaced and marginalised communities within basic training provision.

The links to vocational drivers for HE careers, including education, social care, health etc.

The urgent need for research and analysis, highlighted by COVID-19, to better understand the practical interconnections (and therefore points of potential community building) between mainstream and marginalised communities: economic, political and logistical.

The webinar will provide examples of positive university engagement (via the UNIfied programme and beyond) that demonstrates the role doctoral researchers can play in shaping the agenda of HE institutions.

By the end of the webinar, participants will have a clear overview of the motivation, genesis and maintenance of the UNIfied programme and understand how this taps into broader themes of international and local solidarity and resilience as well as considering practical ways that they themselves can take part.

This webinar will be hosted by Jon O’Connor, Director of the Cooperative Schools Network and Programme Lead of The School Bus Project.

Building Humanitarian Networks & Community Resilience