Stories of impact: Migration journeys of refugee women from Syria, Afghanistan and Ukraine

The number of refugees globally has increased rapidly since 2020, rising from 20.7 to 21.3 million by the end of 2021. Some of the most recent international conflicts provide the context that frames this project. Specifically: the war in Syria that led the Canadian government to resettle 40,000 Syrian refugees by the end of 2016; the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in August 2021 that led to the Canadian government’s promise to resettle 40,000 Afghan refugees (which resulted in only 29,010 arriving in Canada by August 2021 (IRCC, 2023)); and, most recently, the Russian invasion of Ukraine that has continued since early 2022 and has led to more than 133,000 displaced Ukrainian nationals entering Canada through the special emergency travel program by March 2023 (IRCC, 2023). 

Sharing these stories with audiences – from academic to mainstream – helps build widespread understanding about how political events impact lives and about the complex identities and re-settlement experiences that refugee women face.

Working with our partner Catholic Crosscultural Services (external link)  (CCS), this project generated stories shared by refugee women participants, who are also clients of CCS, to better understand the refugee experience. The stories are used to assess the impact and gaps in service delivery of the CCS’s programs and services used by these high-need clients. In addition, the participatory processes of engagement and co-creation employed as methodology helps build participants’ capacity to integrate into the multicultural environment of Canada and to assume control and agency over their own lives. It also helps amplify their voices as well as their ability to self-advocate.

This project employs storytelling and other narrative and arts-based approaches, with the objective of learning about the “lived experience” of refugee women, as a way to produce “democratic” forms of knowledge about their re-settlement experiences in Ontario, Canada.

Participants are Syrian and Afghani refugee women, and Ukrainian women clients of the partner organization, CCS-those displaced from Ukraine after the Russian invasion in February 2022, and arrived in Canada on the special temporary visa program for Ukrainians fleeing the war, the Canada-Ukraine Authorization for Emergency Travel (CUAET). In the first phase of the project, using a series of ‘Storytelling and Learning Circles’ and oral history techniques, creative writing and arts-based expressive methods, 15 participants were  engaged in group settings, and through workshops, together we explored topics related to their family histories and their experiences of pre- and post-migration journeys. In the second phase, an additional 15 refugee women from these countries were recruited for participation in semi-structured interviews.  Additionally, four focus groups were held with CCS staff who work in a support role with high need refugee population groups; as key informants who support these population cohorts during different stages during their re-settlement processes, their insights make a significant contribution to the research.

Round table sessions and workshops have been presented during the Annual IMISCOE conferences in 2024 and 2025.  

Learnings related to experimental methodological approaches employed in the project have also been shared with colleagues, including through presentations made at Monash University and Edith Cowan University during the Global Exchange Fellowship (GEF) visit to Melbourne in September 2025.