Communities Support Solution
Bomoko NI - Northern Ireland Refugees and Asylum Seekers Women Association
As part of our communities’ co-design programme in 2024, BIHR partnered with Bomoko NI (the Northern Ireland Refugees and Asylum Seekers Women Association) to co-design a human rights support solution. Our organisations have worked together to produce two printed leaflets containing key information about human rights in relation to housing, with more detailed information and translations in Arabic and Somali available digitally via a QR code.
Please use and share this resource with anyone who could benefit from knowing their rights or the rights of people they support.
View the digital guide View the large folded leaflet here View the small folded leaflet here احصل على هذا الدليل باللغة العربية
Collaborating with Bomoko NI
Bomoko NI is a unique organisation created by and for refugee and asylum seeker women in Northern Ireland. They provide a welcoming space for women to connect, support one another, and participate in their integration process, offering advice and advocacy support services as well as programmes focused on capacity-building and community relations, and raising awareness through local events and conferences.
This resource was made in collaboration with the staff, volunteers and members of Bomoko NI over the course of six months. It includes real life stories and issues that have been provided by Bomoko NI that cover the human rights issues that refugees and asylum seekers face when it comes to housing in Northern Ireland.
The Resource
Here is just a small preview of some of the resource pages:
Mimi Unamoyo, founder of Bomoko NI said:
"The need for this guide was identified during consultations at Bomoko NI's advice clinic, revealing that refugees and asylum seekers often face challenges related to housing, such as being relocated without choice or consultation. Being relocated without taking into account that children will travel miles to attend schools which affects their physical, emotional, and mental well-being even to focus on their studies.
The guide serves as a practical resource to help all refugees and asylum seekers in Northern Ireland understand their basic housing rights and advocate for themselves."
Working with Bomoko NI
BIHR first worked with Bomoko NI back in 2021 when we delivered a free human rights awareness-raising workshop with their members. We were delighted to be able to partner with them again on a different part of our Communities Programme a few years on, building on previous work by collaborating over a longer period of time to co-develop a human rights-based advocacy tool, bespoke to them.
For Bomoko NI's members, housing issues often come up in their lives. The short and sharp physical leaflets (one with stories, one without) contain key information about how the Human Rights Act works, two key rights relating to housing, and some real-life stories showing how those rights apply. Not all of their members can easily access the internet, so having a physical resource containing relevant stories was important to Bomoko NI, with a digital guide also available for those who can access it.
We have translated this resource into Arabic and Somali which are common languages in the refugee and asylum seeker community in Belfast. We hope that these leaflets will help people to understand that they have rights and that they can take practical steps to ask for those rights to be met in their interactions with public services.
Watch our blog from when we went to visit Bomoko NI to test the guides
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