Communication inequalities & minority ethnic groups: Lessons Learned from UK Bangladeshi experiences of the pandemic

Watch the recording of the event on 21 September here:

As the pandemic has thrown into stark relief, a one-size-fits-all approach to communication about COVID-19 does not meet the needs of BAME groups in a linguistically and culturally diverse modern Britain.

For the past year, King’s College London, alongside our community partners the Swadhinata Trust, has been exploring UK Bangladeshi experiences of the pandemic as part of an active UKRI study. We have heard from people who could have been completely cut off from information because they were reliant on an oral language – a language that does not have a written form – rather than English for their health interactions. We have also heard from the family members, friends, and carers who had to step in as translators and gatekeepers of information to make sure they were not cut off from information. We have learned about how this type of information sharing leaves such communities vulnerable to misinformation. We have also identified how the work of local doctors, community leaders, and outreach workers in intervening as mediators has been vital in communicating and building trust in measures like the vaccine amongst South Asian and other minority ethnic groups. Together with our partners, we have also developed ways of empowering and guiding mediators for communities with an oral language tradition as part of our CoronAwarness project.

At this event, we will bring together policymakers, researchers and civil society to share what we have learnt from these projects and the implications for building trust and developing more inclusive communication practices for minority ethnic groups. We will present key findings, including our animated short, ‘A Corona Story’. The film is based on our data and tells the story of the community through the eyes of a Bangladeshi family living in East London. We will share the outcomes of a public discussion about the lessons learned from the pandemic that we will hold at the film launch earlier in the month. Finally, we will present our recommendations for adopting mediation as a communication strategy to build trust on a local level.

You can read more about the project in this document.

If you have any questions about this event, please contact Mark Cabling.