The Project
We are a group of advocacy workers, refugee doctors and academics working to support refugee medical doctors who are recertifying their credentials and looking for employment in Northeast England (and beyond).
We are documenting the lived experiences of work of refugees who have been displaced and forced to find sanctuary in the UK.
We believe there is a moral, social, political and economic imperative to assist refugee professionals who have been forcibly displaced from their home countries.
GROUND, 2018 (one of three works, Ground, Sea and Sky)*
At a moment of escalating critical labour shortages and widening health inequalities, enabling refugee doctors to re-enter the workforce is both a humanitarian imperative and a practical response to regional and national healthcare pressures.
These are skilled professionals who (when permitted) are making critical contributions to the United Kingdom.
Refugees Care is important in key respects. Firstly, there is little existing knowledge concerning the long-term socio-economic integration and wellbeing of refugee health professionals in Northeast England; secondly, there is a gap in knowledge about the possible deskilling of refugee health professionals for whom there is no pathway to reaccreditation.
Our study is particularly significant as there has been little scholarly or media focus on the experiences of refugee health workers in Northeast England—a crucial region that, per capita, has the UK's highest concentration of dispersed asylum seekers, many of whom reside in areas of high economic deprivation.
Our objectives are three-fold. One, we will document 'best retraining practices' across the UK to evaluate and inform the programming of the project's community partner. Two, we are aiming to build a formal institutional partnership between community advocacy organisation and Newcastle University's (NU) School of Medicine. Three, we will create a documentary film offering powerful insight into the lives of refugee health professionals. This output will be circulated to substantively raise the public understanding of refugees in the UK. With accompanying public forums, the film will be screened in locations across the UK.
*Thread Bearing Witness project. Alice Kettle with contributions from Pipka/Lesvos Solidarity, Ahmad Ali, Somaya Hossaini, Yakob & many other residents at Calais refugee camp working with Suzanne Partridge; Nahomie Bukasa, Sahira Khan and Ai Ling with Linda Leroy at the Helen Bamber Foundation; Nisrin Albyrouty, Khouloud Alkurd, Heba Almnini, Heidi Ambruster, Marwa Ammar, Amal Ayoubi, Stella Charman, Susan Colverson, Jenny Cuffe, Lama Hamami, Miriam Jones, Asmaa, Ruth le Mesurier, Vanessa Rolf, Samar Sobeih, Chaymae Yousfi & many children from English Chat Winchester; Farhia Ahmed Ali, Nawad Hersi Duale, Amran Mohamud Ismail with Refugee Action working with artists Jenny Eden and Richard Harris; Julie Firman, Victoria Hartley, Louise Jung, Susan Kamara, Sam.
Various threads and life jacket material on printed canvas
3m x 8m
Photos: Joe Low
All images are subject to copyright Alice Kettle.
