Supporting Refugees – Projects we support in crises settings

To mark World Refugee Day, we’re highlighting the dedication of our grantees working around the world to make a difference to the lives of refugees. Through their work, they provide support, care and essential services in times of crises.  

At Elrha, we fund transformative research studies and innovation solutions to address global humanitarian challenges.

In this blog, you will learn more about five of our grantees whose work focuses on refugee communities, including bolstering non-communicable disease care, to understanding how migrants use public health services in host countries, to reducing the risk of waterborne diseases in refugee and internally displaced persons (IDP) camps.

Supporting reproductive autonomy in refugee settings through ARCHES community intervention

Refugee women face heightened risks of intimate partner violence (IPV), including reproductive coercion (RC), which involves interference with contraception or pregnancy decisions.

With support from our Humanitarian Innovation Fund (HIF), the ARCHES (Addressing Reproductive Coercion in Health Settings) intervention was successfully adapted for use in clinics serving refugees in Bangladesh. The project extends his support to refugee women unable to access facility-based care, by creating a community-based adaption of ARCHES to reach vulnerable women outside clinic settings.  

Using a user-centered design approach, the project engaged refugee women, community health workers, and other stakeholders to develop and test the impact of this model.

‍Find out more about this innovation.

Strengthening child-friendly sanitation in Rohingya refugee camps

In the Rohingya refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar, children face significant challenges with using latrines and hand washing stations. Emergency response programmes often prioritise adult needs, leaving the specific needs of children unmet. These obstacles lead to unsafe hygiene practices, increasing the risk of waterborne and helminthic infections, alongside a risk of slipping and falling when using facilities.

We partnered with Village Education Resource Center (VERC), ECLIPSE, OXFAM and Save The Children, to explore community-centred solutions through three phases: preparatory, implementation, and evaluation.  

This approach aimed to identify barriers and solutions to improve access to safe and child-appropriate WASH facilities, and opportunities to scale-up in other humanitarian settings.

Find out more about this innovation

Effectiveness of a self-help chatbot for conflict affected young people

The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that one in five people affected by conflict will experience a mental illness. STARS (Sustainable Technology for Adolescents and Youth to Reduce Stress) is an e-mental health intervention developed by WHO to support mental health in conflict-affected youth.

The guided online self-help intervention was culturally and contextually adapted and trialled in a country- wide randomised control trial in Jordan, targetting for young people experiencing psychological distress and trauma,

This study tested the effectiveness of STARS among refugees in Jordan. The results of the trial and associated research will be disseminated through conferences, peer-reviewed academic journals, webinars and capacity building programmes.

We anticipate that STARS will be implemented as an evidenced based self-help psychological intervention in Jordan, with project partners supporting these efforts using their understanding of STARS developed through this project to promote the work more widely to ensure inclusion in relevant policies.

‍Read more about this research study

Self-managed abortion: barriers and opportunities in humanitarian settings

We partnered with African Population and Health Research Center, Ipas, International Rescue Committee and Resilience Action International to explore and document women’s experiences with abortion in humanitarian settings. The aim was to inform the development of interventions, guide policy and programmatic changes, and highlight critical gaps in access.

This study focused on displaced women experiences with self-managed abortion and information access. It examined how these experiences vary by displacement, status, humanitarian setting, and legal context, and used respondent-driven samplying to estimate the abortion incidence.                                                                                                                                                    

The results highlighted abortion practices in humanitarian settings and provide critical evidence for resource needs and service delivery improvements. The findings inform strategies to support women self-managing abortions and serve as advocacy tools for improved access to safe abortion care.

‍Read more about this research study

Promoting effluent pasteurization for cholera prevention in Rohingya refugee camps

In the congested settings of Rohingya camps, effective pathogen removal in faecal sludge treatment remains a challenge. Limited space restricts safe and sustainable aerobic processes. Enhancing anaerobic processes for pathogen removal could enable safe water reuse for irrigation.

‍The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) worked with partners to evaluate the effectiveness of pathogens reduction for existing and upgraded IOM Decentralized Wastewater Treatment System (DEWATS). Veolia Foundation adapted its innovative technology: the skid of pasteurization with solar heating system to the existing DEWATS. The international health research institute (ICDDRB) based in Dhaka monitored specific pathogens reduction and effluent parameters to gather evidence on innovative solutions.

This innovation project aimed to enhance pathogen inactivation and provide evidence for replication in various contexts.  

Read more about this innovation  

This is just a small selection of the projects we support that work directly with refugee communities. If you're interested in learning more, you can explore the range of the research and innovation projects we fund.