Speaking Refugee

The VULNER Podcast, with Sham Jaff

The VULNER project’s research aims to understand the vulnerabilities faced by migrants to enable decision-makers to better identify situations of vulnerabilities and address them. For this purpose, the VULNER research teams have conducted fieldwork, to reach a better understanding of the vulnerabilities as lived by the migrants themselves. They met with social workers and mingled with migrants. In this podcast you will listen to Jameela, who is a refugee from Afghanistan and currently in an accommodation centre in Belgium; Gabriel, who has a refugee history himself and is now working with refugees in Uganda; and Fatima, a humanitarian worker in the MENA region.

Image © CLS, VULNER project, 2022

Episode 1: Home

Home has a different meaning for everyone and we will talk to Fatima, Gabriel and Jameela about their home or homes and their stories of vulnerability in connection with feeling or not feeling at home, missing home or making a strange place their home.

Image © VULNER Belgian Team, 2022

Episode 2: Family

Family plays a very important role in terms of feeling secure or even happy. To many people it is the primary place where they feel attachment, nurturance and love. In building new connections and relationships, many refugees can develop new resilience.

Image © VULNER project, 2022

Episode 3: Food

When it comes to making a strange place your home, food plays a central role. It makes it possible to incorporate small rituals from the previous life into the new life. But food can also be a part of our daily struggles and sorrows.

Image © VULNER project, 2022

Episode 4: Gender

Gender - next to other factors, such as health or age - plays a central role at different levels, when vulnerabilities are being assessed in reception centers and by social workers. We talked about it with Fatima, Gabriel and Jameela.

Episode 5: Health

Having to worry about health is a constant source of stress and a source of vulnerability in the truest sense of the word. We want to explore how health - physical and mental health - has an impact on the lives of asylum seekers.

Episode 6: Capital

In this part we talk about capital in general. Money is certainly an important type of capital - but not the only one. In general, capital can be described as anything a person or entity is able to „spend“ or use when competing with others on any market.

Listen and subscribe to the full podcast series on the VULNER's podigee website.