This session is about understanding the experience of internal displacement through the narratives of IDPs themselves. Listening to the stories of people who've been displaced by conflict or environmental disaster gives us a greater insight not only into the motivations of those who leave their homes, but also into their needs as people often living in precarious conditions. Some questions to consider while reviewing the material for this session are, how does listening to IDP voices help us better understand the experience of internal displacement? What are the varying effects of the creative forms IDPs used to give expression to their experiences? For example, poetry, song, film, or animation. How can IDP stories contribute to a higher profile for issues of internal displacement in the public sphere? For Roberta Cohen, the author of your first reading, Listening to the Voices of the Displaced, IDPs are the best place to articulate their needs and evaluate the national, regional, and international responses to those needs. But Cohen also notes that national and international decision-making on the issue rarely considers IDP testimony. The study aims to rectify this by elevating the voices of IDPs on key issues that affect them and lists nine reasons why listening to IDP testimony can enhance awareness, protection, and decision-making on the issue. As you engage with the creative sources for this session, try and make some links to the central ideas brought up in Cohen's introduction to the report. Cohen's report is divided into a list of specific IDP priorities and concerns. One section you're asked to read is that on better relationships with host communities, which documents the feelings of injustice and hostility sometimes felt on both sides, as well as the need for more intervention by authorities. The short film, Janiah and Hamilton Leave Home, gives voice to some of these issues in its description of the poor treatment experienced by two displaced people in the Choco region of Columbia, which is host to a large number of IDPs. Similarly, the Syria Untold Testimony of the mother from Idlib describes host communities in Salqin, increasing rents and food prices in response to the arrival of displaced people from other parts of the country. Since the occurrence report, hosting the displaced and being hosted, looks at scenarios where displaced families are hosted by local residents. Caren divides the challenges of this scenario into three broad categories; length of stay, the problem of children, and the need to share. Read this article in conjunction with the UN Women short film, Into Our Own Hands, which tells the story of Nora and her family who escaped their besieged home in Tal Afar, Iraq and arrive Kirkuk to stay with relatives who were already housing two other families. What challenges do you think would arise in a situation where two or more families are sharing a home. Homemaking and home building emerge as important themes in IDP testimonial literature. Alice Anderson-Gough's report, Understanding Home in Northern Uganda, shows how factors like gender and cultural tradition can affect the fraught process of homemaking in displacement scenarios. Our sense of what constitutes home is individual and often culturally specific. For the displaced, Acholi population of Uganda, temporary shelters can never be a real home because they're not built on ancestral land. What's more, the idea of home is complicated by social networks and gender dimensions relating to marriage and hospitality norms. How do you think of home? Is it a place, a group of people, or a particular landscape? Anderson-Gough also touches on the material process of homebuilding in her report. An idea explored in the film as Hasta La Ultima Piedra, a documentary that follows the people of San Jose de Apartado in Colombia who after being caught up in infighting between several militant factions, decide to relocate the village house by house and become a community of peace. The documentary and the community it documents are both part of a peaceful campaign against the protracted violence in the region. Watch the film and explore the website of the community that they pass. How effective is the film and the campaign itself in raising awareness of the effects of displacement as a result of protracted warfare? Many of the creative resources listed for this session work with IDP narratives in a way that not only aims to raise awareness of the issues, but also to ameliorate the lives of those affected by displacement. Consider the two projects, Ham Delhi based in Afghanistan and the Ukrainian Theater of the Displaced. They're operating in very different geopolitical contexts. Both projects use theater and performance to explore potentially traumatic experiences and to broker harmonious interactions between desperate groups. In particular, both projects focus on the impact of displacement on young people and position performance as a means of providing the space for young people to work through their experiences. Ham Delhi in Dori means the ability to understand and share the feelings of the other. Creative expression from music and song to animation and film can help us understand what it means to be internally displaced. Listening to IDP voices in narrative or testimonial forms helps focus attention on their needs and can also work to raise the profile of these issues in the public sphere. As we are now in the final session of the course, I'd like to take this opportunity to thank you for participating in the short program. I hope the sessions have been both enjoyable and useful and that you feel you better understand internal displacement, conflict, and protection. Please do keep thinking critically about these issues. Do explore the many publications, podcasts, and other resources available open access on our internal displacement website. If you would like to deepen your knowledge of this area, then you might also like to have a look at the MA program on Refugee Protection and Forced Migration Studies that the university offers by distance learning.