Changing the lives of LGBTQI asylum seekers and refugees | Micro Rainbow

Last month, we celebrated LGBT History Month, an annual celebration that provides education and insight into the issues that the LGBT+ community faces.

This year we decided to use this time to support Micro Rainbow, an amazing small charity, led by Sebastian Rocca, that champions LGBTQI+ asylum seekers, migrants and refugees.

Theo Francis?met with national manager Moud Goba to learn more about their life changing work.

Read the full interview below:

Theo Francis: Can you tell me a little bit about Micro Rainbow and what you do?

Moud Goba: First of all, thanks for thinking of us, especially as LGBTQIA migrants is a subject that people don't really think about a lot. Micro Rainbow is an organisation that supports lesbian, gay, trans, queer, intersex, plus, asylum seekers and refugees. We do so through supporting those who are homeless with our housing and homelessness support, and that is through the direct provision of safe housing. We also do a lot of social inclusion, employability and integration work.

TF: So, this is for people who are asylum seekers or migrants? Is it only for people who are in emergency situations? Or is it for anyone coming from another country?

MG: It is mainly but not necessarily for those in emergency situations. It's for LGBTQI asylum seekers, migrants and refugees. From the start of the journey to the end as they try to integrate into the new communities, find employment and try to move on.

TF: And why is Micro Rainbow needed?

MG: Just under 70 countries still criminalise homosexuality. People are still persecuted, jailed, and face severe difficulty in their country if they are LGBTQI. They flee from conditions such as prison, forced marriage and other persecutions to seek safety in the UK but when they come as refugees or asylum seekers, they continue to face challenges.

They're in a safe country where you're free to be who you are, but as an asylum seeker, they face challenges as migrants. They face challenges as people from diverse backgrounds, and also from within the refugee community in the home office provided accommodation. Because of their sexuality, sometimes they're ostracised by family, they're rejected by their communities, so they're extremely isolated and at times even face homophobic abuse from other refugees. So you find that they face a lot of homelessness, as sometimes they do abandon their accommodation rather than face homophobia and abuse.

You'll also find that as they try to move on after being granted refugee status by the home office, it's really difficult to find jobs. They don't have UK work experience. They need a lot of guidance to integrate.

TF: That makes a lot of sense. When you think about migrants, you tend to think about communities moving over together and supporting each other. So, if you're isolated from that, and then you're also a migrant... that makes a lot of sense.

MG: That is traditionally where refugees get support. I am Zimbabwean and when I first arrived into the country, I looked for the Zimbabwean community, I got a lot of technical support from other migrants from other refugees from the church. But if you're LGBTQI, sometimes you're ostracised from that space. So you literally become isolated and don't have anywhere to really turn to.

TF: How does Micro Rainbow use research to support the work that you're doing? Do you have any interesting insights that you've discovered through research?

MG: Yes, so actually, research is why we exist in the first place. In 2013, Micro Rainbow, researched the life of LGBTQI people and found that LGBTQI migrants tended to live in poverty. Most of them were asylum seekers and refugees and were facing the challenges in?social exclusion, in moving on and employability.

Then in 2016 Micro Rainbow were researching the housing situation of LGBTQI migrants. That research also found that a lot of the people we worked with faced homelessness. So from that we started our housing project to provide safe housing for LGBTQI asylum seekers and now have 15 houses across the country, between London, the West Midlands and Yorkshire.

Also, with these three strands of research, we found that our LGBTQI women were underrepresented in our programmes. We tried to find out why we are not engaging with more asylum seeking women and the results from that research helped us to really focus on women's specific work, which ended up with us employing it LBTI housing women's officer and coordinator. So, from that research, we were able to support a lot more women.

TF: What were some of the reasons why there were less women engaging?

MD: We found that we needed to ensure that there is space for women only. We now have, for example, a group for women that is called Sister Sister, we also have a specific Trans group. The challenges that gay men have and LBT women have are different and sometimes women need safe spaces. That's not to say that gay men don't also need safe spaces but there are sometimes cultural challenges where a woman might not be very open around men, be that gay men or straight men. Trans people also need a space where they can talk about their specific challenges in terms of perhaps transitioning or just in terms of their day to day lives.

We also found that women can be hidden homeless and quite easily exploited

TF: What does hidden homeless mean?

MG: Hidden homeless is when women stay only because they don't have anywhere to go. They may be looking after someone's children, or in domestic servitude, but that place is not insured accommodation. If someone doesn't need them anymore, they can easily say "You can go now" and they are homeless. So, so they are staying just because they need a roof over their head.

TF: Again, that makes a lot of sense. I'm one of the cofounders of Colour of Research, we're an organisation that is trying to support and champion people of colour, of all different types of colour, in the market research industry. One of the first things we realised is that we're not all the same, the challenges that each race faces is different. It doesn't mean that one is more important than the other, it just means that each needs a different approach. So, different services for different people makes perfect sense to me.

Ok so, although the insights that came from that research were quite upsetting, the research was successful in that it found these insights - what would you say are some of the challenges that you face when you're trying to conduct research?

MG: I think the first one is that we are not a research organisation. If we have to conduct a piece of research, we have to employ a research colleague to do the work for us and the challenge of getting someone who has experience in dealing with, or has worked with LGBTQI migrants, it can be quite difficult. Also, as you know, researching is quite an expensive business and to get really good quality research requires money, and that's not always available.

TF: What can the research industry do to further support your work?

MG: While working with LGBTQI migrants, the first thing to remember when you're researching is language. Do people understand the questions they are being asked? It's important to ensure that you have interpreters or translators to really ensure that you are connecting with the people you are researching.

Then there is also the challenge of understanding people's financial situations. LGBTQI asylum seekers are awarded just under ￡40 a week approximately., and that is for food, clothing, transport, everything. So, if you're going to meet someone for research, it'd be good to know that they might be living in a precarious situation and you should refund their travel at least. If it's a zoom call, ensure that they have enough data, etc.

Most important if you're researching the LGBTQI community is really understanding the community. It's important to understand things like pronouns, understanding what could be considered homophobic language, and also engaging with training. We do a lot of LGBT awareness training with our partners, the research community can engage in that as well to really understand. Also, I always advocate for employing migrants. LGBTQI migrants and asylum seekers have really different experiences and there could be some researchers in that field. If you engage with diverse people, your research can be really enriched.

TF: Absolutely! Do you think that researchers should either be from the community or have had that training, as mandatory, before they can even step into a piece of LGBTQI research?

MG: I think so. Really they should engage with people from the community to be part of the research or even lead on the research. If that's not possible, at least get training, so you understand the subject you're getting into, because how do you research something you really have no understanding of? Say, for example, if you didn't know about the language to use and in your research report you use homophobic language, you might not know that you're offending, so it's important to get that training.

TF: So, I'm not a researcher, I'm a fieldworker. My job is to go and find the participants to take part in the research studies. Sometimes we'll have projects where we're trying to find people from LGBTQI backgrounds and it can be quite a challenge. What would you say are some of the barriers and what solutions could someone like me use in order to reach out to those communities better?

MG: I think it's always how you approach people. If you feel like someone is just coming to research and out they go, it shows that they don't really understand. By explaining what the research is going to be used for, how the information is going to be used, and what impact this kind of research might have, people will usually be willing to engage and willing to help.

Also, sharing the research with them afterwards! I know that a lot of researchers ask us for research participants and then you never hear from them again. It's always good when they come back and say "we did this piece of research and here are the highlights of what we found" I think that people always want to understand the impact of what they shared, or at least understand what came out of it.

TF: Did you have any any last things you wanted to say about Micro Rainbow and what people can do to help?

MG: Of course, we're always happy to engage with people who can support us to their skills, people can always look through our website www.microrainbow.org to see how they can help us. One of the things I think that you noticed when you came into the office, we've got lots of duvets, plates, pots and pans. That's also how people support us, we send out an Amazon list whenever we open a new house and people donate different things to help the new refugees set up in the new home. So they're always many different ways to help us.

Visit?www.microrainbow.org?to learn more and?become an?#ally?by making a?#donation?to help provide?#safehousing?for asylum seekers based on their?#sexuality,?#genderidentity?or?#intersex?status.