Migration Justice Update: Migrant Project & PHF residential

Migration Justice Update: Migrant Project & PHF residential

Welcome to this new blog series from our Human Rights Participation Officer, Doro Richter, on migration justice.

This month, I was privileged to be able to take part in a residential organised by Paul Hamlyn Foundation as the Consortium’s Participation Officer. This event brought together a range of diverse organisations from across the Migration Justice Movement. Attendees were invited to make deep connections with each other from across the sector to explore how we can work in partnership on the many challenges that we face and envision the future together.  

The residential was opened and inspired with a poem: 

Turning to One Another 
There is no power greater than a community discovering what it cares about. 
Ask “What’s possible?” not “What’s wrong?” Keep asking. 
Invite in everybody who cares to work on what’s possible. 
Acknowledge that everyone is an expert about something. 
Trust that meaningful conversations can change your world. 
Rely on human goodness. 
Stay together. 
— Margaret Wheatley, “Turning to One Another”, 2002 

These inspiring words describe well our approach to a migrants’ human rights project within the Consortium. Looking to weave the focus of migrants’ rights into our human rights work, we are strengthening connections with migrant organisations, and creating platforms for migrants’ voices to be heard in the spaces of decision-making. 

With the Human Rights Bill for Scotland, we ask for something that is possible for Scotland – to be a country where all of our human rights are respected for all of us. A country where we all have opportunities to give voice to our expertise and views, and are able to participate in decisions that affect our lives. We want to listen to each other’s experiences and stories of living in or coming to Scotland, so that from those connections we can inform and build community. 

As part of our migrants’ human rights project, we have held conversations with 17 organisations so far from across the migration sector in Scotland, exploring human rights concerns and experience. For example, these conversations have highlighted the need to strengthen informed and equitable services for people, that are culturally sensitive, provide clear information and advice in other languages, and enable anti-racist structures. 

In the coming months, we will be working with migration organisations and groups to explore just what such migrant-inclusive public services should look like. Please get in touch with me at doro@hrcscotland.org if you would like to be part of these discussions or provide any insights, experiences or views to shape our work.  

Doro Richter, Human Rights Participation Officer 

May 2024