Vital Signs - Part 1

Collaborating with the long-term displaced people in Africa means direct engagement with and being in relationship to, some of the biggest global challenges we face; chronic poverty, hunger, social injustice, inequality, lack of education, gender-based violence and climate change.

The Vital Signs project takes place with people whose lives are permanently affected by all the above hardships.

Vital Signs is a project which began through invitation by UNHCR Mozambique & UNHCR Malawi to scope how our ways of thinking, working & collaborating might have a positive impact on the long-term displacement of refugees in Dzaleka Refugee Camp in Malawi and Maratane Refugee settlement in Nampula Province, Mozambique.

The refugee population represents multiple nations: Democratic Republic of Congo, Somalia, Rwanda, Burundi, and Ethiopia.

Scoping missions were conducted in May & October 2022 to understand the nature of life and environment in which people live and to value and co create a reciprocal ways of working, through relational practice and knowledge exchange.

Project 1: Dzaleka Refugee Camp, Malawi

‘Stitch and the future of LCF online learning & knowledge exchange through textiles & embroidery’

Concept:

This project uses participatory design to co-create new online curriculum that involves physical making beyond university walls. A pilot initiative designed to support access to education for students living in extreme learning environments.

Context:

Globally only 6% of refugees have access to higher education – The UNHCR have introduced a target called 15 by 30 aimed at increasing enrolment of refugees in higher education from the current 6% to 15% by 2030.

Aims:

Together, as part of the ambitions of UAL Sanctuary, this work seeks to support meeting the target of 15 by 30.
To co-design new content through online knowledge exchange with refugee makers in the Global South, in collaboration with the MA Fashion Textiles Technology course.
Test and assess our methods of teaching, the cultural appropriateness of our offer and what new knowledge might inform teaching and learning in places of extreme life circumstances.