Tēnā koutou,

We invite you to join our ethnic, former refugee, and migrant researchers online Tautoko session on Thursday 19 September 11am-12noon.

Our 19 September gathering will prioritise informal kōrero and connection. Our time to kōrero will be broken up by five-minute informal presentations about current research or opportunities. We aim to facilitate connection among researchers, former refugees, and migrant peers who are passionate about research by and for ethnic communities and how it can be used to support collective action and positive change.

Ethnic, former refugee, and migrant researcher Tautoko sessions provide a dynamic informal space that fosters a collective sense of shared purpose with opportunities to learn from each other, share stories, experiences, research activities, methodologies, challenges, gaps and explore ideas and opportunities.

We celebrate all forms of community-led knowledge-making, whether it's community-based mahi and mātauranga, or based within organisations, the public service, or academia. If you are developing 'by community for community' learnings, we value your thoughts and contributions and want you to be part of our research network.

After piloting these sessions last year - we were really pleased to hear that Tautoko sessions are valued by attendees. We will continue to have a dedicated space for on-going ethnic, former refugee, and migrant researcher Tautoko sessions. Thank you to those of you who attended Tautoko sessions last year and provided feedback on how Community Research might best support you and the research community. What we heard from that session has been useful for thinking about future Tautoko sessions and ethnic research related activities.

These sessions are:

· an informal unrecorded safe spaces for connection, sharing and kōrero

· a space where we recognise our diverse lived experiences, privilege the voices of those who are heard less often (including former refugee and ethnic migrant voices), and acknowledge the distinction and context differences between forced and voluntary migration

· that what we do is guided by and contributed to by Tautoko session participants

· prioritise informal kōrero and connection for some sessions and more formal specific topic focused kōrero at others.

Facilitator:

Bev Tso Hong | Kaitūhono, Ethnic Research Engagement Lead, Community Research