Women Impacted by Forced Migration: A Community-Academic Research Partnership

Time: Sept. 21, 2023 @ 12pm – 1pm PST

Summary: Women living within intersections of migration, gender, race, class, and additional social locations are inequitably affected by limited social support, gender-based violence, and poverty. Despite these understandings of inequity, minimal programming and policies are informed by the experiences of this population. In this presentation, Shahin Kassam, a postdoctoral fellow in the UBC School of Nursing and Diana Ospina, senior manager of the Surrey Local Immigration Partnership (LIP) will describe their community-based research partnership goals and the resulting project funded through a SSHRC Partnership Engage Grant, that aimed to better understand lived and living realities of women impacted by forced migration. They will share their story of teaming up and engaging in a collaborative journey across the research process from the generation of the research questions to their integrated knowledge mobilization activities as well as initial findings and next steps.

Co-presenter Bios:
Shahin Kassam, PhD, RN is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Capacity Research Unit in the UBC School of Nursing. Shahin’s emerging program of research centres on women living with the impacts and health sequelae of forced migration including gender-based violence, social exclusion, and racial discrimination. Shahin engages in community-based research approaches that collaboratively advance engagement between health and migration sectors. Framed by her analytical lens, Shahin targets locating and addressing broader interrelated structural violators including racism, classism, and sexism which shape women’s health and contribute to inequitable access to health and social services.  

Diana Ospina has been in the settlement sector since 2011 and has held various instructional, coordination, management, and senior management roles with Immigrant Services Society of BC, Multi-lingual Orientation Service Association for Immigrant Communities of BC, and DIVERSEcity Community Resources Society. Currently, Diana supports the work of the Surrey LIP, Refugee Readiness Team, CARE for Migrant Workers, and the BIPOC Unified Inclusive Leading Organization-development for South Fraser (BUILDS) project. Diana is the Senior Manager Surrey LIP and Collaboration, with interests in assets-based approaches to community partnerships which are deeply rooted in principles of decolonization, justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion.

Note that this presentation will be recorded and available on the Capacity website at: https://capacityresearch.ubc.ca/