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Krish Kandiah

Speaker

Krish Kandiah

Session

Refugee Integration and the Future of Social Cohesion

Bio

Dr. Krish Kandiah OBE is a British author, broadcaster and social entrepreneur who holds degrees in chemistry, missiology and theology, including a PhD from King’s College London. He founded Home for Good, a charity promoting fostering and adoption for vulnerable children, and the Sanctuary Foundation, which supports refugees in finding welcome, work and housing in the UK. A former executive with the Evangelical Alliance, he has chaired the government’s Adoption and Special Guardianship Leadership Board and mobilized civil-society support for arrivals from Hong Kong, Afghanistan and Ukraine. A regular BBC broadcaster and author of more than a dozen books, he writes on refugee integration, child welfare and social cohesion for outlets including The Guardian and The Times.

The big questions

The kind of questions this session opens up.

  1. We see the stranger at the border as a cost far more easily than as a contribution waiting to happen. What would it take to flip that instinct?
  2. What does a society reveal about itself in the way it treats the person who has just arrived with nothing?
  3. Is social cohesion something you protect by keeping people out, or something you only ever build by letting them in?
  4. If welcome is good for everyone, why is it so hard -- and who benefits from keeping it that way?