The Exchange Collaborative is focused on reducing social isolation and increasing positive social connections among migrant and refugee background women.
Rather than offering technical solutions or projects, we practice adaptive leadership. We awhi, support, facilitate and lead by enabling new solutions .
For the workshop, leading adaptively meant establishing a creative space to bring together the different experiences, knowledge and ideas of women who have experienced social isolation, or supported those experiencing it, to jointly create solutions.
We didn’t know if this approach would work but we realise the value in learning by doing so we decided to give it a go and find out!
From experience and research, we knew that isolated migrant and refugee background women, often unknowingly, hold key parts of the solutions to their challenges, as do those who work with them[1]. We knew that while many organisations provide activity-focused social connection, these offerings often lack on-the-ground knowledge of the sectors they aim to serve, or a perspective beyond their own geographical focus. We were aware of a need to integrate these difference services, and provide easier ways for women to find the help available.
By asking women for their priorities, we were confident we would have a better basis for integrating existing services.
We also thought many of these women would have new ideas of their own. We hoped that leaders would stand up to develop these ideas but we were also nervous that this might not happen. We were also worried that ideas would only emerge from women already well-known and confident in this setting.
For the workshop to be successful then, we had to attract a wide range of women. So we made it easy to participate by providing transport, childcare, and interpreters. We also took time to make sure everyone felt welcome and comfortable by making sure everyone was greeted and offered refreshments, by having Exchange members work with each table, by inviting the women to thank those and gift a flower to another woman near to them and by offering lunch and networking space together at the end.
Beyond being welcoming and comfortable, our workshop had to have a point of difference, with some clearly beneficial outcomes. So we offered a small kickstart fund[2].. By doing this, we could not only help fund next step for the most popular ideas but also show that we believed in both their ideas and their abilities to make them happen.
On the day, over 80 women participated and 6 priority ideas were generated:
- Job creation
- Easier ways to learn to drive and get licenses
- A gardening collective
- An event to showcase what is available to migrant women, and and offering network opportunities.
- A coffee club
- A counselling app and/or social media page
We were happily surprised by the turnout, the readiness to engage in this way and, especially, in the women’s openness to discussing potentially sensitive issues with strangers. We think this was a combination of:
- Exposing ‘the elephant in the room’ of social isolation helped to unite and focus everyone
- The invitation to ‘create solutions together’
- Reducing barriers to participation via childcare, transportation and interpretation
- Being welcoming before, during and as the event finished
- Reinforcing community ownership of solutions and assuring support to realize them
- Using a range of channels (social media, personal emails, newsletters, conversations, fliers) to promote the event.
We found that women:
- Want to talk about creating solutions together
- Have many valid and feasible ideas that they are willing to share
- Are ready to engage in the ideas of others and contribute constructively
- Have energy to get solutions off the ground, especially with some supported
- Are heartened that other women want to join them to enable solutions
- Want more opportunities like this and more opportunities to connect with other women more generally
- Are most likely to come when invited personally by a trusted person.
Following up the six initiatives and giving them the best chance of success is our key priority at the moment .
It is likely that not all of these will become fully developed responses but they will all be explored further. This process may also result in totally new collaborations and reveal different ways of working that can be useful to developing pathways to address other challenges too.
All of this will also inform The Exchange Collaborative’s practice of collaborative and adaptive leadership.
[1]They are not the only ones of course – others in the system hold pieces of this puzzle as do men and other people important in women’s lives and as do members of the wider community, including the ‘host’ community. Starting by offering these women a key role in developing solutions together means that the initial power starts with them. However, we need to be careful not to make their isolation theirs to fix alone.
[2]The kickstart was very much appreciated but was not rated as highly as other parts of the workshop (just over 73% said it was ‘great’). This may be because not everyone received it, or possibly because the prospect of a small investment wasn’t as much of an incentive as we had thought it would be.
