Listening Sessions Project
Sharing the voices and solutions of resettled women, girls, and gender non-conforming people
Challenge
While resettlement to the United States offers respite from some of the most extreme violence, it exposes women, girls, and gender non-conforming people to unique barriers compounded by long-entrenched issues of race, class, gender, patriarchy, and poverty. The barriers they face often go unnoticed or unaddressed; their voices go unheard.
The Listening Sessions Project aimed to elevate the voices and visions of silenced, and purposely unheard, resettled women, girls, and gender non-conforming people, by facilitating multiple listening sessions in 5 different states. Having listened to and synthesized what women and girls had to say about their experience and solutions, the Listening Sessions Project had prepared for an advocacy campaign that hinged on in-person events and conferences. Travel restrictions due to COVID-19 drastically affected these tactics, and so the Listening Sessions Project needed an online presence that preserved the project’s vision and went beyond a standard website to engage service providers and donors in understanding and acting upon the shared stories and solutions of refugee women, girls and gender non-conforming people.
Trusted Partners: Tidwell Services, Karen Organization of San Diego, United Women of East Africa
Response
To draw in donors and funders, help them understand both the stories of refugee women, girls, and gender non-conforming people and the complexity of their experiences, and to prompt them to take direct action, Resistance Communications created a bold, and interactive online platform focused on the central themes and issues they face and how these intersect with one another. These were paired with related, immediate steps donors and funders could take to support the specific challenges faced by resettled women, girls, and gender non-conforming people. Most critically the site was built around and centers the words, images, audio, and messages of women and girl resettled refugees.
To decrease decision-fatigue and information overwhelm, the platform provided solution-focused short-term and long-term concrete recommendations that could be directly implemented.
Impact
Woven through the platform are 400+ resettled women, girls, and gender non-conforming peoples’ voices, and visuals, audio and text that don’t separate issues into siloes, but rather show how the racism, xenophobia, gender discrimination, violences, economic barriers they face intersect and build on each other.
