Amar Bari Amar Jibon [My home, my life] research project Update

19th November 2022 was another momentous day for the Amar Bari project team. It marked the start of our research relationship with people from the Bangladeshi community in East London, UK who have come together to form the Bangla Research Advisory Group (BRAG).

Hosted by the Bangla Housing Association (BHA), community co-investigators, at their offices in Hackney, London, we were joined by a diverse group of 7-8 people from the East London Bangladeshi community - women and men of different ages, drawn from the boroughs of Tower Hamlets, Newham, Redbridge, and Hackney, living in a range of housing tenures and in different types of living arrangements. Over the next three years, BRAG members and the Amar Bari project team will work in close collaboration to coproduce research and knowledge, seeking to influence practice and policy.   

At this first meeting, we shared our motivations and expectations concerning working together. Speaking to the big housing and housing-related challenges facing Bangladeshi elders' ('probin' in Bangla) and their families, we started exchanging lived knowledge and research data. This discussion began unpacking Bangla probins' experiences, expectations and aspirations regarding home, care, and housing and what meaningful outcomes could look like.