As part of the Sustainability Dialogues web series, I organised a session on participatory action research with refugees in Kuala Lumpur. I reconnected with former participants to reflect on what participation and research meant to them, and how inclusion could be made meaningful in practice. We discussed ways in which researchers and practitioners might work more responsibly with refugee communities, with a focus on shared decision-making and relevance to everyday life. The session closed with a wider Q&A involving sustainability practitioners.

[Watch the session: Sustainability Action Dialogue: Action Research with Refugees]. The discussion reinforced the importance of creating space for refugee-led thinking, where communities shape both the questions and the direction of the work. We returned to questions of participation and inclusion as practices that must be grounded in lived experience and trust.

On 13 February 2020, I independently organised and hosted a workshop at Tilburg University, with online participation, to support Muhammad Noor, a former participant in my PhD research and the founder of the Rohingya Project. The project focuses on digital identity and financial access for stateless Rohingya communities.

The workshop provided space for collaboration and dialogue between the Rohingya Project and invited researchers, legal clinics, NGOs, and academic institutions. The sessions focused on building practical connections and exploring ways to support ongoing work. Discussions were structured around three key areas of the Rohingya Project's work:

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Session 1: Rohingya Memory and Archiving
Session 2: Rohingya Statelessness and Digital Identity
Session 3: Rohingya (Social) Enterprise

I hosted and organised Refugees as Development Actors: In Their Own Voices, hosted by the Make it Right Movement at Brickfields Asia College in Kuala Lumpur. The event featured refugee-led panel discussions and brought together forced migrants and civil society organisations. It formed the final stage of my action research project by creating space for participants to share their work, exchange ideas, and connect with others engaged in social change. In preparation, I supported co-research participants with training in presentation and public speaking. The audience included representatives from NGOs, universities, and advocacy groups. Following the event, several participants collaborated with civil society actors to set up a joint platform focused on policy engagement and public dialogue.

I chaired Valorising Voices, a visual photovoice exhibition held at the COST Action IS1306 conference New Speakers in a Multilingual Europe: Policies and Practices at Coimbra University. The exhibition was the result of a six-month participatory project with refugee leaders and undocumented migrants in the Netherlands. I applied for funding through COST Action IS1306 and coordinated the project team and logistics. Participants received photography training from a professional photographer. I collaborated with Wij Zijn Hier (We Are Here), a collective of rejected asylum seekers in Amsterdam, who shared images from recent protests, food-sharing events, and daily life. A local journalist contributed photo work on undocumented youth in Amsterdam. I also worked closely with the Afghan Community Centre to co-develop consent forms and facilitate participation from their community, who provided photos and video materials. In addition, I organised a video contribution from the head of a Somali community college, who shared reflections on research methods and refugee inclusion.