Covid19 response: Collaborating with refugees in Jordan

The Covid pandemic has been both a medical emergency and a threat to people’s livelihoods, including among Syrian refugees in Jordan and in host communities. Supported by a GCRF Covid19 agile grant, an interdisciplinary team of Sheffield Researchers, including PI Prof Tony Ryan from Chemistry, Pete Mylon who leads the Sheffield Innovation space iForge, and SIID Fellows Dr Steve Connelly, Prof Dorothea Kleine and Dr Melissa Gatter have worked with UAL, UNHCR and colleagues at Al Al-Bayt University and Petra University in Jordan to jointly develop this participatory action research project. The project is focused on working with a cohort of 60 peer-researchers who themselves come from the refugee and host communities.        

Our objectives are to 1) support self-help on PPE production and livelihood activities by refugees within the camp and neighbouring communities; 2) through training and peer-research activities to build research capacity of participatory action researchers (PAR) in the refugee and host communities, and of the partner organisations and Jordanian academic researchers; 3) to understand the complex interplay of intersecting axes of inequality (gender, age, marital status etc.), the related social norms and their relationship to refugees' and marginalised host communities' agency and capacity for innovation.