Activities, Events and News

In introducing the symposium’s first thematic cluster on lifelong learning for older adult migrants and diasporic communities, Dr C.J. van der Linden began with a vivid account of a Sudanese academic rebuilding her life in the Netherlands. The story drew attention not only to the resilience and resourcefulness of migrants, but also to the relational nature of agency: the ways in which people rebuild their lives through connection, support, and everyday acts of learning and adaptation. Her introduction set the tone for the session by inviting participants to think beyond deficit-based understandings of migration and to recognise older adult migrants and diasporic communities as active learners, contributors, and agents in shaping their own lives and the lives of others. 

Dr Stephen Adaawen examined the relationship between migration, climate change, and sustainable reintegration through research in Lesotho and wider African contexts. He showed how environmental pressures and economic shocks interact with existing inequalities to shape migration decisions, often prompting movement to South Africa while also leaving some communities in highly precarious conditions. A central concern in his presentation was the question of return, and how migrants can be supported through reskilling, livelihood diversification, and more sustainable forms of reintegration. He also reflected critically on the role of research itself, asking how findings might 'actually transform lives' and insisting that research should benefit the communities whose experiences it seeks to understand.

Dr C.J. van der Linden reflected on diaspora engagement through a case that foregrounded both service and mutuality. Drawing on research in north-western Uganda, she explored how women, youth, diaspora actors, and local government came together to support community-based learning and development, showing that diaspora engagement can be most effective when it builds on local knowledge, existing relationships, and a shared “ethic of service”. Her discussion highlighted the agency of women and young people not as passive recipients of support, but as active participants who adapt, combine, and apply knowledge in ways that are meaningful in their own contexts. At the same time, she raised important questions about sustainability, appropriate teaching and learning strategies, and how initiatives can remain rooted in local capacity rather than dependence on external actors.

Dr Alicia Bowman drew on the narratives of seven Indian and Pakistani marriage migrant women in the UK with emerging English and print literacy to examine what lifelong learning can enable in everyday life. She challenged deficit-based understandings of adult migrant learning, showing instead how limited formal schooling and literacy are shaped by wider structural and gendered inequalities. At the same time, she highlighted how language learning can strengthen confidence, autonomy, recognition, and voice, while also supporting women to navigate institutions, expand their aspirations, and participate more fully in social and public life. In this sense, lifelong learning emerged not simply as skills provision, but as a space through which women could become more audible, less constrained by silence, and better able to shape their own lives.

In his introduction to Theme 2, Dr Robert Jjuuko invited participants to reflect on what happens after graduation and how transitions into work are shaped by wider contexts of mobility, displacement, and institutional responsibility. Using the image of a graduate standing before the world of work, he posed a series of questions about belonging, preparation, and connection: whether universities continue to accompany students as they move into employment, migration, or uncertainty, and what happens when graduates’ lives are reshaped by conflict, forced movement, or economic necessity. His introduction set the tone for the cluster by foregrounding education-work transitions as relational and unequal processes rather than straightforward pathways, and by asking how institutions might respond more meaningfully to the realities young migrants and refugees face.

Dr Steven Odama reflected on Uganda’s refugee context and the possibilities and limits of inclusion in higher education. Dr Odama highlighted Uganda’s relatively progressive refugee policy framework and its commitment in principle to equitable access, while also drawing attention to the practical barriers that continue to shape refugee students’ experiences, including documentation requirements, fees, language, accommodation, and the limited availability of targeted support. His contribution made a strong case for understanding refugee students not as passive recipients of assistance, but as active contributors to national and regional development, and for placing refugee inclusion at the centre of thinking about higher education, community transformation, and socio-economic opportunity. 

Dr Beatrice Onwuka explored the experiences of international medical graduates as highly skilled migrants navigating new professional systems across borders. Drawing on observations, her own professional experience, and a proposed new PhD project, she focused on the processes of relearning, rebuilding, and reconstructing professional identity. She highlighted the often invisible labour involved in recredentialling, adapting to new institutional and cultural norms, and rebuilding a sense of professional legitimacy and belonging. Her presentation drew attention to the tension between being recognised as essential to healthcare systems while still being required to repeatedly prove competence, often at considerable emotional, financial, and personal cost. In doing so, she invited participants to see mobility not simply as movement or opportunity, but as a deeply demanding lifelong learning process shaped by recognition, identity, and the conditions under which expertise is allowed to travel.