Project dldl/ድልድል is dedicated to the development and strengthening of religio-culturally sensitive domestic violence alleviation systems in East Africa and among ethnic minority and migrant communities in the UK. dldl/ድልድል means ‘bridge’ in Tigrigna, a term that reflects the project’s aim to promote integrated responses to domestic violence by fostering collaboration and knowledge exchange between various stakeholders, including secular domestic violence providers, religious leaders, seminarians and researchers. The project takes a distinct decolonial and transboundary approach to domestic violence and abuse in migrant communities, centring on communities’ worldviews and domestic violence experiences, and seeks to relate socialisation and conditions in home societies to the experience of domestic abuse in host societies. It also promotes a more substantive engagement with faith and religious beliefs in domestic violence service by cultivating religious literacy and collaborations with religious stakeholders.

In its first four years, Project dldl/ድልድል has completed extensive research in East Africa and among migrant communities in the UK, including numerous literature reviews and direct community-led research with diverse ethnic minority and religious communities (African and Asian of Christian, Muslim and other backgrounds) and is currently completing a sector-wide survey with domestic violence providers in England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. So far, the project has found that:

• Clerics and religious teachers are usually not prepared to respond to domestic violence with awareness of safeguarding, trauma-sensitivity and theological confidence. Our direct interventions with clergy suggest that the latter can become more active in domestic violence responses, provided that: a) theological training is embedded in the religious traditions that faith communities consider authoritative, and b) trainers are fully versed in the cultural context, religious teachings and domestic violence realities that the religious teachers they train are faced with in their everyday life.
• The existing evidence on religious sensitivity in the UK suggests that service providers are unsure about how to engage with the religious beliefs of their clients and may not always differentiate between cultural upbringing and norms from religious teachings. Service providers need to be supported to develop literacy about the religious beliefs of different faith communities they cater to in order to develop a basic understanding of religio-cultural differences and community backgrounds across geographies and cultural contexts, which can reduce tendencies to see members of faith communities a homogeneous.
• The evidence suggests that domestic violence services may be challenged to adapt to cultural diversity and recommends that generalist services could incorporate culturally specific elements in their recruitment strategies and intervention approaches. Service providers are also invited to cultivate self-awareness and become more reflexive of their own cultural biases not to superimpose those onto their clients. Additionally, more culturally adapted and faith-informed services may need to emerge and be supported and integrated within the mainstream service sector so that together they can reach a larger number of communities in an integrated manner.

The conference will provide a platform to share and discuss this emerging evidence and to channel the project’s research findings into sector practices and policies, as well as enable frontline providers and ‘by and for’ initiatives to present and share their approaches with the rest of the sector. It will also facilitate international exchange by bringing together partners and collaborators from East Africa, the UK, the US and other countries.