Image: Ideas Into Action cohort, 2023.

June is World Refugee Month, designed to unite communities, encourage understanding and combat negative rhetoric surrounding immigration. Is it needed now more than ever? Result's Robert Martin has a ponder.

Have you ever been peacefully lost in your thoughts, watching the world go by, contemplating life, the universe and everything? During this, have you ever felt overwhelmed by the realisation that everyone around you, every person you’ve ever met or will meet, every passerby, every stranger, everyone on the whole planet who is living now, who has ever lived, and whoever will live, has a life as rich, complex and vivid as your own? That every single one of us is the main character in our own lives, with our own hopes, fears, ambitions, feelings? 



That profound realisation has a name - sonder. It’s a great word. It’s also a rarely used one.



Sonder is a feeling that brings about great waves of empathy and compassion. It highlights what we have in common, not what separates us. It encourages a sense that we are, all of us, connected. And right now, we need some sonder more than ever.



Back in 2015, when there were around 65 million displaced people in the world, Result’s first project supporting refugees saw us working with Greater Manchester Immigration Aid Unit. Since then, we’ve delivered projects such as Ideas Into Action with TERN and SEUK, supporting refugee entrepreneurs, we’ve worked with 12 social leaders in the migration and refugee sector in partnership with the Lived Experience Movement, delivered the Step Change programme for leaders of organisations working with refugees, and many more projects.



Several of our associates come from a refugee background, including co-founder and former co-director Hormoz Ahmadzadeh, who wrote about his experiences as a refugee here, and current co-director Saif Ali, who has spoken so eloquently about his experiences in a TEDx talk that you can watch here. Key to the work we do with refugees is that lived experience, a shared understanding that displacement is something that can happen to all of us.

Today, there are around 118 million displaced people in the world, almost double the amount since that first project we worked on supporting refugees in 2015. That’s about one in seventy of us, forced to flee because of conflict, human rights abuses, violence, persecution and changes to the climate. 

Right now, ongoing conflicts in Gaza, Ukraine and the Congo have brought about the displacement of millions. Leadership decisions to cut funding for climate change projects brings further migration. For some, this provokes those feelings of empathy and compassion. For others, there’s fear, anger, resentment. And it feels like that’s on the rise. 



When we experience sonder, it’s an emotive reminder that we are all more than just numbers, than statistics, than political scoring points, and that we each have a unique identity that is as valid as anyone else’s. The sense of interconnectedness is a fine reminder that displacement happens because of decisions made by leaders, politicians and big business, and the plight of refugees is, after all, entirely interconnected with these decisions.



In some ways, our work at Result has a sense of sonder at its heart, no matter which community, organisation or individual we are with. We are connected. We are supportive. We are person-centred.



As we come to the end of World Refugee Month, let’s all hope for a little more sonder in our lives and remember what we gain when we share our compassion - and what we lose when we don’t.


We are what we do and we love what we do.