Here is a new report from the Reclaiming Lived Experience leadership conference highlighting the need for accountability, collective action and sharing best practices to create a more inclusive sector.

The Reclaiming Lived Experience Leadership conference, held on 25 April 2024 in London, brought together 75 staff and volunteers from the UK’s refugee and migration sector. Co-organised by Freedom from Torture, Refugee Action, Refugee Council and Migration Exchange, the event sought to promote more inclusive approaches in the refugee and migration sectors by focusing on three key areas: defining lived experience leadership, identifying and dismantling barriers to power, and enhancing career opportunities.

The key insights that emerged highlighted the need for collective action to dismantle barriers and the importance of sharing best practices within the lived experience network.

Throughout a rich afternoon of discussion—one individual even exclaimed, “this is really making me think!”—participants heard from keynote speakers, collaborated in World Cafe workshops, and joined a reflective panel at the end. Participants also networked over a welcome lunch and heard live poetry performed by Loraine Masiya Mponela.

The key insights that emerged highlighted the need for collective action to dismantle barriers and the importance of sharing best practices within the lived experience network. Participants emphasised creating safer spaces for conversations and recognising lived experience as an invaluable knowledge base for organisations. Finally, attendees called out for more accountability within oppressive power structures, where both funders and organisations must do more—through policy changes, positive action and by recognising their own inherent biases—to resource those with lived experience to take on and thrive within positions of power.

The participants recognised that the scale of work to be done is extensive, yet the day was infused with a sense of agency. “People with lived experience are waking up to realise… we have agency and power to change things, to confront the system,” commented one panellist, if at the same time recognising that the lived experience movement faces an uphill struggle against inherently discriminatory systems of oppression and white supremacy.

The conference promises continued discussion and action around lived experience definition, radical reimagination of recruitment and employment principles.

Moreover, participants highlighted the challenge of equitably working towards lived experience leadership with an intersectional lens, in a context where racism, homophobia, ableism and sexism complicate and aggravate systemic injustices.

“There is optimism and solidarity right now”, reflected one participant. Indeed, looking forward, the conference promises continued discussion and action around lived experience definition, radical reimagination of recruitment and employment principles, and wider societal change to challenge government laws that restrict access to work and media narratives that tokenize and reduce lived experience to an identity rather than source of expertise.