In this blog, our former colleague Shreya Gautam reflects on her role reviewing and delivering the 2024 annual Migration Residential and key lessons on convening events for the migrant justice movement.
Since 2017, Paul Hamlyn Foundation has hosted an annual Migration Residential. The residential was established in response to requests from those we work with for spaces that allow those working on migrant justice to make connections and engage in constructive discussions. Crucially, there was a desire for rest and reflection to be a part of this space.
Over the past year, I’ve worked with the Migration team, our grant partners and other funders to review, design and deliver the 2024 residential which took place in May. This blog outlines the highlights and learning from this period, which I hope will be useful to those planning similar events and working to build a strong, durable and effective migrant justice movement.
The residential is a multi-day retreat for organisations working in migrant justice. The focus of the residential is on exploration, not production – rather than developing new work or projects, the residential is there to bring people together to make connections and have engaging discussions. The residential is also there to provide a space for the people we work with to take time out of their day-to-day work to recharge and re-engage with others working on similar issues.
There have been six residentials to date, each taking a different approach as we learned more about what the field wanted out of the space. What started as a small gathering of a few dozen people expanded to 150+ grant partners attending in 2022, which included organisations funded by Paul Hamlyn Foundation, Unbound Philanthropy and the Justice Together Initiative.
As the residential increased in scale, it became clear that we needed to explore who the event was for, and what they wanted from this space.
Initially, the residential was primarily made up of CEOs and senior leaders. While this was effective in building partnerships at that level, over time attendees started requesting that we make this space available to others in their organisation instead. We have since started to do so, which has allowed for new connections and relationships to be strengthened across the movement and not solely held by those in more senior positions.
Alongside this, we also saw changes in our own funding which affected who took part in the residential. As we increased our grant-making, we shifted the focus of our funding from mainly larger and more well-known organisations and think-tanks into supporting more community-led, small to medium sized groups across the country. These changes not only brought new faces into this space, but also influenced the ideas and areas of exploration attendees wanted to focus on as part of this gathering.
In preparation for this year’s residential, we spoke to the people we fund and reviewed past residentials to understand what we should focus on going forward. What emerged was instrumental in shaping our approach. Building on this feedback we aimed to create a space:
Balance between including everyone without overwhelming everyone
We listened to the field’s concern that the residentials were becoming too big, which was making it harder to connect and engage in important and sometimes difficult discussions about our relationships, commitment to anti-racism and individual and collective strategies.
To address this, we opted for not partnering with another funder like we had done in previous years and to host the residential on our own. While it was still a large event as we invited everyone we fund, plus funders, facilitators and Paul Hamlyn Foundation staff, this year our cohort of 120 was much smaller than the previous 156 from 2022.
Feedback has shown that while people valued us inviting everyone who receives funding, for some, this was still too large. To address this, we are trialling a few post-residential convenings for smaller groups who share similar interests and would like to continue exploring and working together. Our aim through this is to find ways to support connection and collaboration beyond the annual residential and we will share learning from this over the next year.
“An excellent opportunity to take a step back from overwhelming frontline activity to consider the bigger picture with others in the sector. The ethos of PHF underpinned an encouragement to imagine better rather than to consider the impact of small changes to a broken system was inspiring.”
Don’t avoid difficult conversations – facilitate them
Another addition this year was the facilitation from Held – a collective that helped us embed anti-oppression into the event design and delivery. As the residential brings together people with different insight, perspectives and priorities to have challenging yet crucial conversations, we have worked with Held to ensure potential conflict was handled in a non-punitive and productive way that helps us to learn and move forward together.
This means that instead of shutting down disagreement, Held, our team and workshop facilitators were there to support discussions and to encourage listening and reflection. While we expect there will always be challenges and disagreement, the overall discussions at the residential felt quite special, with many attendees mentioning they appreciated the space to be in touch with different approaches, views, and the benefit of hearing from others’ experiences and concerns.
“I really appreciate the encouragement from PHF for grantees to have challenging conversations in such an encouraging and safe space. I really appreciate the time together with people to connect and not only develop new partnerships but also form deeper bonds that make our work stronger.”
Leave the echo chamber
While much of the feedback we received focused on an appreciation of the space to build connection and solidarity with others who share similar values and visions for the future, a couple of attendees mentioned that there is a risk that events like this could create an ‘echo chamber’.
With such a diverse group of attendees, we know there are differences of opinions and approaches which have tremendous value in being brought to the fore. We have reflected seriously on this feedback and will look to continue developing our facilitation around difficult conversations to help attendees feel able to challenge and disagree constructively.
“I enjoyed and found it useful to be able to tackle the “big” questions and connect with our vision as a sector. […] I think that the conversations that we usually have “on the margins” at events (in breaks, at the pub afterwards, etc.) were given time and space in the main programme, and that’s so refreshing to see.”
Prioritise rest
The positivity throughout the residential and the range of rich discussions between and after the structured programme was mentioned as a highlight by many attendees. We have learned about the importance of creating a space where attendees felt comfortable to rest and recuperate instead of feeling the pressure to attend all sessions.
“[What I enjoyed the most was the] encouragement to make the space our own, connect with others, and/or use the time for rest without expectation of attending everything was inspiring and useful.
“Having lots of beautiful outdoor spaces (by the campfire!), indoor spaces, sofas, bars etc, to meet and have different conversations was really helpful.”
Over the course of the year, planning and reviewing the residential offer has given us space to think about how funders can aid in building stronger social movements and supporting cross-sector collaboration. Among the many questions I have asked myself during this process were ‘what does it mean to centre the historically undervalued labour of care in our work and movement?’ and ‘how do we centre care when we know many migrants and wider communities in the UK are not afforded the same privilege?’.
It became clear to me that access to rest is largely dependent on issues of power and privilege – ‘who has the time or can afford to take a break?’ and ‘who is able to step away from work for a few days to disconnect from the daily requirements and take time for themselves and to engage with others?’.
As we reviewed the feedback from this year’s residential, I noticed how important the offer to rest and connect had been to many attendees. They reported feeling a stronger sense of community during the residential, which directly links to the concept of collective care.
Collective care doesn’t centre individuals, but rather us as a community that encourages and supports one another to care for ourselves and others. Within this space, the goal is to ensure we create an environment where no one feels shame in resting and that we acknowledge that rest helps us to strengthen our relationships and overall contribution towards creating a long lasting, resilient migrant justice movement.
Thank you to everyone who joined us this year for the Migration Residential for trusting us to hold the space, for engaging in interesting conversations and taking our invitation to connect, explore and strategise together.
As we prepare to launch the new iteration of our migration programme in early spring, Letícia Ishibashi, our Head of Programme – Migration, looks back at how the Foundation’s work has evolved through the years, what we have learned from our grant-making and how this has helped shape and sharpen our direction.
Shreya Gautam reflects on how funders can provide support beyond grants to organisations working working on migration, asylum and refugee issues.
