Sophia Ali is a second-year graduate student, currently completing her M.Sc. in Health Sciences at Carleton University with Dr. Francine Darroch. Her research will primarily focus on trauma-informed care available to women in marginalized populations. Sophia previously completed her undergraduate degree in biochemistry at York University (2020) and is looking forward to taking on more of an equity-orientated approach to health sciences. She previously worked at Women's Health In Women's Hands, a women's health centre, in addressing the barriers present for women of colour in accessing health services. As a first-generation Somali woman, she is motivated to work with Dr. Darroch in exploring and addressing issues concerning women. She hopes to continue to advocate with and for these communities through her work and research.
Exploring Trauma- and Violence-Informed Physical Activity Programming: Refugee Women’s Perspectives
Co-funded in partnership with Mitacs, Carleton University student Sophia Ali is working with Women’s Health in Women’s Hands, a non-profit women’s community health centre. The centre is committed to providing holistic health services to racialized women in the Greater Toronto Area, to understand the barriers to mental health and physical activity supports for self-identified refugee women, from both youth and older populations, who have experienced trauma and/or violence.
Using community-based participatory research, this study will conduct two focus groups run by peer moderators: one focus group with first-generation older maternal figure migrants, and the second with younger women who identify as the children of refugees. The focus groups will explore the intergenerational perceptions of current understandings of mental health concerns, and the mental health benefits of physical activity. The work will be approached from an intersectional perspective recognizing multiple intersecting systems of oppression including race, gender, culture, sexual orientation, and other dimensions of difference, and their impacts on the health of women who are marginalized and their ability to access, and effectively navigate, the mental health and physical activity supports.
This research aims to address the gaps in developments regarding physical and mental health of immigrant and refugee-dominant populations, and how this can be overcome by addressing these issues in the context of trauma- and violence-informed physical activity programming and from an intergenerational perspective. Findings from this study could also serve to inform strategies for ethnic-based community organizations to strengthen intergenerational connectedness.