Online UNESCO RIELA Spring School: The Arts of Integrating 2026

Following an amazing in-person Spring School in May 2026, we are now hosting an online version of the same event the week of 2 November.

See the full programme here.

Schedule:

• 2 November - online live keynotes, presentations, poetry and more

• 3-5 November - self-study, we will send out suggested readings and explorations

• 6 November - open stage to share your work (for those who would like to)

The UNESCO Chair hosted within the School of Education at the University of Glasgow undertakes a programme of work focused on multilingual knowledge exchange in the area of refugee and humanitarian protection, with a focus on fostering multilingual, multimodal and multilateral models of integration through creative and cultural expressions. We are now inviting a selection of people and initiatives to present their work at our next online UNESCO RIELA Spring School 2026. This online edition builds on the in-person event which took place in May 2026.

Theme: caring and sharing

The Spring School is a 3-day in person knowledge exchange event, organised and hosted by the UNESCO Chair on Refugee Integration through Education, Languages, and Arts (UNESCO RIELA). We host this annual event in person in May, with an online edition during the Southern Hemisphere Spring. At our 9th annual online Spring School on 2 November 2026, building on the in person event in May, we will continue to explore intergenerational caring and the sharing of knowledge, wisdom and practices in the context of (forced) migration and restorative integration through education, languages and the arts.

How can Elders, the living archives among us, pass on their language, history, culture and wisdom to younger and future generations when spatial, temporal and political barriers stand in the way? How is care organised when people are forced to flee? Who carries culture forward, and how is it kept alive when communities are broken up and dispersed? Can cultural heritage be maintained and transmitted within new communities, and what mechanisms or efforts are involved? How can destination countries support those experiencing the loss of cultural and linguistic heritage? How do refugees and people seeking asylum access knowledge about their own cultural heritage? UNESCO has declared a Decade of Indigenous Languages and the wisdom-speech, linguistic inheritance and forms of speech of elders, and of those beginning steps in the languages of home are critical to intergenerational forms of care for intangible cultural heritage. How are the generations undertaking care for culture and language in times of genocide, pain and protest?

We want to understand how intercultural caring and sharing is organised, how it can be supported by longstanding communities and what we can learn from these practices.

Programme

Read the full programme here.

Keynote speakers:

• Samantha Disbray (The University of Queensland) - Celebrating and sustaining language and multilingualism through the arts

• Adhar Marup, Najia Mohamed & Fiona Cameron (StARS) - By refugees, for refugees, serving those who need it most in Cairo

Poets:

• Ayesha Ahmad (St George’s University)

• Sylvia Agbih (University of Augsburg)

• Ricky Dragon (represented by Alison Phipps)

• Anna Dziuban (Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich)

• Anna Gotlib, J.D., Ph.D. (The City University of New York, Brooklyn College)

Presenters:

• Lisa Eckenwiler (George Mason University) - Book presentation: Forced Migration and Health Justice

• Piki Diamond - Ko koe te aho ki te whenua: Remembering your indigenity

• Alessia Mangiavillano (Universitat Pompeu Fabra) - Tell Me a Story and It Will Live in My Heart Forever: The SPEAK Project

• Zixuan Yang 杨子萱 - Carrying Hua’er Forward: Intergenerational Musicking and Placemaking

• Rox Madeira (Movement in Thyme) - Herbs from Our Land

• Aleksandra Glos (Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile) - Where Children Play, Peace Begins: Lessons from a Caring School in Santiago de Chile

• Rachel Morley - Open Circle Lament