My LIA with the MSCL
I chose to do my LIA with the Munich science communication lab. My project involved designing and implementing a workshop to be given to the refugee community on the topic of heat protection. These workshops would involve me providing the participants with information about what they could do to protect themselves from the rising temperatures in the city alongside group discussions where I got them to give their opinions on what the city of Munich/their accommodation could do to better prepare for heat waves. Based on my discussions with the refugee community I would write a report to be given to the refugee accommodation organisers and the Munich city council on what could be done to protect refugees in the city of Munich from rising temperatures. Designing this workshop came with a number of challenges. Firstly, I knew that the language barrier was going to make the workshops more difficult. Additionally, since many of the participants came from hot countries I wondered if the information provided in my workshop would be of any interest to them. I felt very strongly that it was important to not talk down to the refugees or be condescending. I also wanted to include them in the workshops and have lots of discussions instead of just talking to them. In order to not be condescending or explaining things to the participants that they already knew I decided to include a section of Munich specific tips for heat waves e.g where the shaded spaces and water refill stations are. I also decided to use my background in health science to include information about heat health conditions. In order to overcome the language barrier I included lots of pictures in the presentation. I was able to find translators for some of the workshops which was a big help! However, even with all of this I was still very nervous when the time came to run the workshop. However, I was pleasantly surprised by how well it went! The information on hydration and sun protection seemed especially interesting to the group and they got very involved in the discussions. Once they found out about the report they willingly shared lots of issues that they were facing in their accommodation. I took very detailed notes throughout the entire workshop and afterwards when I was chatting to them about their accommodation. These notes formed the basis of my report. I also reflected on what went well and what didn’t go so well during the workshop and used this to edit the presentation to make it better for the next workshop. Overall in the six weeks I was in Munich I was able to run three workshops - each one being used to make the presentation better for the next. Once all the workshops were done I wrote up a report to be sent to the Munich city council and the refugee accommodation organisers about what we had learnt. I truly hope that this report can be used to help protect refugees in Munich from the rising temperatures in the city. Overall, I had an amazing six weeks in Munich and I hope the work that I did has a positive impact on the city and the refugee community.
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