Connecting Citizens to Science – S4E3 – Covid 19 research and relationships with communities in informal settings for policy response

In this week’s episode we talk about COVID-19 and how travel and public health restrictions presented challenges to ensuring that urban marginalised voices were heard by researchers and policy makers in India and Bangladesh. Our impressive guests Professor Sabina Faiz Rashid and Senior Research Fellow Dr.Surekha Garimella discuss the importance of having established long-term relationships with people, communities and supporting organisations which enabled research to continue and ensured that the needs of people in urban spaces were reaching decision makers. Our guests share;  

• what happened when Covid-19 hit urban informal communities in India and Bangladesh 
• the personal and professional passion of researchers to work with communities, not only for research purposes but in solidarity for the struggles faced  
• their own career journeys of humility, unlearning, connectedness and shared humanity that shaped their lives and relationships with communities