In the Beginning, There Is Space – Re-imagining Wellbeing in the Refugee and Migration Sector
Makani Cambridge | May 2025
Last week, we gathered to begin a journey: Reimagining Wellbeing in the Refugee and Migration Sector (funded by Refugee Action). Not from a textbook or toolkit, but from the ground of our shared humanity. From our bodies, our stories, our breath. And like all things that matter, we began with space.
Space to arrive.
Space to be.
Space to be seen.
Together, across two cohorts, one made up of people with lived experience and the other bringing together a mix of roles and journeys, we explored what it means to co-create a space that is not only safe, but also brave. A space that makes room for our wholeness, where our wellbeing is not treated as an afterthought but as the foundation.
We brought objects from home that carry stories of our wellbeing, soft, beautiful, broken, and sacred. In sharing them, we made visible the invisible. We remembered that storytelling isn’t just a method, it’s a medicine. It connects us, grounds us and reminds us that our wellbeing is shaped not in isolation, but through the people and places that have held us.
We moved through our Community Guidelines not as rules to be memorised, but as values to be felt, in our bones, in our breath. We expressed them through gestures and movement, letting our bodies speak what words alone cannot.
At Makani Cambridge, we believe that the structure of a session holds power. That how we meet is just as important as what we talk about. So we slow down. We pause. We make room for silence. We tend to the unseen.
In a sector where urgency is constant and survival is often prioritised over rest, taking time to check in, to stretch, to breathe, is not indulgent, it is necessary. It is how we begin to practise a different way. A way that doesn’t only care about people, but with people.
We reminded ourselves that wellbeing isn’t something we chase alone, it’s something we build, gently, in community. It’s in the way we witness each other, without fixing or rushing. In the way we respect pace, listen with care, and honour each other’s rhythms.
There is no one-size-fits-all answer to wellbeing in our sector. But we do know this:
In the beginning, there is space.
And when we shape that space with love, respect, and collective responsibility, something transformative begins to grow.
Most importantly, wellbeing in our sector is fundamentally collective. No amount of individual mindfulness or self-care can substitute for the nurturing presence of a group that holds one another. Healing emerges in circles where stories are witnessed without judgment, in online peer-support channels where people check in with each other and in impromptu gatherings where shared laughter dissolves isolation. These relational practices remind us that we thrive not in isolation but in community.
As we continue this journey and pause to reflect on our work, we’ll ask: what kinds of spaces have truly allowed us to feel like ourselves? When have we felt held, whether in a room or on a virtual call, and what were the conditions that made that possible? By weaving together vulnerability, mutual respect, and intentional design, both in physical and digital settings, we nurture not only individual wellbeing but the strength of our collective practice. In doing so, we embody the ethos we hope to grow in the world: that every person, in every space, deserves to be seen, heard, and held.
Read the blog on Refugee Action website Here