“Domestic Violence, Religion, and Migration”: Project dldl/ድልድል Annual Conference was Successfully Held at SOAS London

Projectdldl  and OCP News Service– 05/07/2024

London – UK: On June 19-20 Project dldl/ድልድል held its Annual Conference 2024 on the topic ‘Domestic Violence, Religion and Migration: Integrating cultural and religious diversity in UK domestic violence and abuse services and developing a future roadmap for the sector.’

The aim of the conference was to build bridges between domestic violence and abuse (DVA) researchers, secular DVA providers, religious institutions and ‘by and for’ organisations catering to specific religio-cultural communities to move the conversation around faith-sensitive and culturally appropriate responses in the UK forward and to delineate a concrete roadmap of priority areas to be addressed collectively by the sector. It also sought to enlarge knowledge and good practices in the UK by channelling into the conversations knowledge and experience from numerous African countries, including Ethiopia and South Africa.

The conference was attended by about 80 participants from at least 15 different organisations, the majority working in DVA services provision in the UK, and catering to diverse faith communities. Organisations and initiatives represented at the conference included the Faith and VAWG Coalition, Respect, Restored, Safe in Faith, Imams Against Domestic Violence, AMINA, FORWARD, Black Churches Domestic Abuse Forum, Sikh Women’s Aid, Coaction Hub (a partnership between Standing Together & Asian Women’s Resource Centre), the Dahlia Project (delivered by Peterborough Women’s Aid and evaluated by Dr Mirna Guha at Anglia Ruskin University), EMIRTA Research, Training and Development Institute in Ethiopia, Fnot Psychosocial Counselling Charitable Organization in Ethiopia, and others. Numerous universities from the UK and South Africa were also represented in the room.

Highlights included an introduction by Dr Romina Istratii, Principal Investigator of Project dldl/ድልድል and main organiser of the event, a keynote by Huda Jawad, the co-founder and Executive Director of the Faith and VAWG Coalition, the attendance of Nicole Jacobs, the UK’s Domestic Abuse Commissioner, and a talk by Archbishop Angaelos of the Coptic Orthodox Church in London on the role of the Church and faith in preventing and responding to DVA.

The conference comprised of evidence-based sessions presented by researchers and practice-oriented workshops facilitated by practitioners from leading DVA service providers, including ‘by and for’ organisations, and concluded with a roundtable to identify priority areas and opportunities for collaboration and collective action. Throughout the conference ample time was left for networking, knowledge sharing and partnerships-building.

On the evening of the conference, Project dldl/ድልድል also held a screening of its docudrama ‘Tidar’, an educational film co-produced in Ethiopia and the UK to raise awareness about the role of religious beliefs and faith in domestic violence experiences.

Source:

OCP News Service