Director's Discussion: Acting locally and thinking globally: how can cities and regions respond to refugees and forced migrants?
More people around the world are displaced today than ever before. This rise in forced migration has complex causes.
The on-going conflicts in Syria, Afghanistan and Somalia are but a few. At the same time, other types of forced migrants, for example victims of trafficking, from these regions and from around the world come to the UK. The unprecedented scale of forced migration to Europe moved the issue high on the national policy agendas. But the support structure needed by refugees and other of forced migrants operates at regional and community level. What is the role of cities and regions in offering support? What, for example, must be done to support forced migrants in Cambridge and the East of England?
Jesus College Intellectual Forum with the Cambridge Refugee Resettlement Campaign, supported by Cambridge City of Sanctuary, bring together perspectives from practice, policy and academia to consider these questions and to discuss how we might better support forced migrants. Using Cambridge and the East of England as examples, we examine how its efforts in refugee resettlement and integration have played out so far. What can be done by students, families and communities, by universities, colleges and schools, and by professionals and local agencies to take on a hospitable and empowering role in responding to those who find themselves, whatever the reason, in our midst?
Our Director, Dr Julian Huppert, will direct discussion with:
- Professor Madeleine Arnot, Fellow of Jesus College, Professor in the Faculty of Education, and Co- Convenor of the Cambridge Migration Research Network, University of Cambridge;
- Doctor Irit Katz, Department of Architecture, University of Cambridge; and
- Councillor Kevin Price, Cambridge City Council.
