Growing up, and then experiencing the start of my professional career in a dynamic third sector, I had plenty of misconceptions about local government. I imagined a slow pace and bureaucracy with not much being achieved. But working at Waltham Forest the last several years challenged my initial assumptions.
In my role in the communications team, I’ve been able to create campaigns that have led to our most vulnerable residents accessing much needed cost of living support, thousands of residents obtaining the digital skills to be able to save money and find job opportunities, and foster carers being recruited to create loving homes for young people. I never imagined I’d be able to do these things, and it became apparent that my previous perceptions of local government were wrong.
Moreso, I never imagined I’d be able to work on a topic I’m so passionate about: the inclusion of migrants, refugees, and people seeking sanctuary – which leads me to Stories of Sanctuary, the storytelling series I work on with the Communities team to give voice to migrants, refugees, people seeking asylum, and the community that supports them.
Stories of Sanctuary campaign
Waltham Forest is a recognised Borough of Sanctuary by the charity City of Sanctuary, which reflects our borough’s commitment to being a place of welcome for migrants, refugees, and people seeking asylum. One of our core priorities under the Borough of Sanctuary initiative is ‘Voice’. This means amplifying the voices of people with lived experience and sharing their stories, cultures, and challenges to celebrate them and humanise a marginalised community. This is where Stories of Sanctuary comes in.
My strategy was simple yet very powerful. I collected a series of real-life case studies, told through interviews, photography, audio, and video. Each story highlighted not only the challenges these individuals face, but also their hopes, resilience, and contributions. The aim was to help residents connect emotionally with these stories, to galvanise residents to a call to action (volunteering or contributing to a small organisation), to humanise the community and challenge harmful narratives often found in public discourse and the media.
Sharing best practice and lessons learnt
Build good internal relationships
I’m thankful to my colleagues in the Communities and Resettlement teams, and have forged good working relationships with them over the years by demonstrating my passion and understanding of their service areas. This has meant they trust me with their area of work, and they have me in mind when they come across potential good news stories. They have direct contact with VCS organisations working on the ground, and also run our weekly migrant drop-in sessions, where people can access free and confidential support and advice. As comms professionals we can’t be everywhere at once, so it’s important to have connections with the teams who are resident facing.
Be prepared before the interview
Ahead of the interview, check-in with the relevant team, colleague or person you’re interviewing for any access or language needs, to ensure you can then speak slowly and use plain English. Make sure you send questions in advance and check what topics are not to be discussed. Having context of their current situation makes a big difference in handling the interviews sensitively too. I was speaking to people who made extremely difficult journeys across countries to seek sanctuary. Some people were very open to speak about this, and others were understandably hesitant. I also had a duty of care to keep a level of anonymity, even if they were fine sharing details, for safety purposes.
Conduct interviews alongside trusted community sources, and humanise your organisation
Strong working relationships meant we could conduct some of the interviews together, or I could be introduced to people in a warm, approachable way. From the perspective of the person we are interviewing, we may come across as corporate and official, and sometimes scary. It’s important to let that guard down from the get-go, and what also helped is establishing a rapport and connection with them. The more human, approachable and relatable you appear, the more likely the person you’re interviewing is to feel comfortable and open up about their experiences, leading to a more authentic, genuine and trustworthy story.
Don’t try and steer or manipulate the story
In my early interviews, and with previous comms activity, I was guilty of trying to extract soundbites, already thinking about what would make a standout quote for Facebook, or a 15 second golden nugget for an Instagram reel. It was only after I really started listening, and took the time to appreciate the power in every word and every sentence, that I got authentic responses. Having a general chat first before immediately starting filming/recording helped a lot. Make sure you block out enough time on both sides of the interview to make them feel comfortable, and check-in afterwards to see that they were happy about what was discussed or filmed.
Always have a back-up plan
There were a couple of times a video interview had been agreed, and then I turned up and the person didn’t want to be filmed. This is obviously completely fine, and people are well within their right to change their minds. Sometimes things can get misinterpreted when you aren’t communicating face to face, and people may not understand the extent to which their stories will be shared across digital channels.
Recording audio with no video helped, because the phone can be out of sight and it retains anonymity. People can freeze in front of a camera too. There are some really creative things that can be done using b-roll and overlaying it with the audio interview, such as filming hands or different body parts. Have a back-up plan and don’t assume you’ll get a certain output before the interview has even taken place.
Be conscious of working with marginalised communities
Rather than dramatise or sensationalise, we highlighted the human experiences people could relate to, like football, food, family, and friendship. This approach helped bring emotional depth and authenticity to the campaign. We weren’t asking our audience to pity the individuals featured. We asked them to understand, relate, and care.
Because of the all of the above, I had some beautiful conversations, with some quotes highlighted below:
“Volunteering has also helped me personally. I struggled with mental health problems and found it difficult to meet new people, leave my house sometimes or go to unfamiliar places. But here, I feel more confident. Helping others makes me proud. Seeing people leave happier than when they arrived gives me strength and reminds me why I continue.” – Yahya
“I used to get confidence from playing football back home. When you play football, if you are playing against people who are better than you, you can improve… Some people don’t like feedback on their playing, but I like to improve my skills. I want to be better.” – MK
“I think it’s amazing that my kids are going to know about the wider world… The priest asked, ‘does anyone know anything about refugees?’ and my son’s hand shot straight up and he’s only seven. It was heartwarming that he knew and was able to talk about it so confidently – it makes me proud.” – Anna Read Anna’s story
“I read about British culture in college. I’ve tried fish and chips. I liked it, because I like fish in my country. And chips – everyone likes chips!” – T
“It has been so good for my children, for all of us, to really see that what we have in common across the world is far bigger than that which divides us.” – Mother Rachel Summers
Tie it back to the organisation’s values and priorities
Many organisations will want to check what the point of the comms activity is (and good comms team should already be doing this). By aligning our campaign with our core values of inclusion and welcome, and embedding it in existing strategies and partnerships, we were able to maximise both reach and impact. Storytelling in content also has an important role to play for channel growth and reaching new audiences in our borough. Everything can have a positive outcome.
Overall, have trust and faith in yourself and your expertise. At times I felt out of my depth, and the some of the topics of conversations were heavy and difficult. I felt a big sense of responsibility in sharing these stories, but the above tactics and tips really helped guide me to create beautiful stories I’m so proud.
Outcomes of the campaign
Because of us giving a voice to marginalised communities, we saw some great outcomes. Our case studies profiling some of our fantastic volunteers helped boost the number of enquiries for our migrant drop-in volunteering opportunity.
We also got some fantastic feedback from those who were involved in the campaign and shared their stories:
“Thank you for sharing my story. I’m happy for you to publish it elsewhere and I really appreciate the opportunity and the work you’ve done on it.”
-Yahya, Migrant drop-in volunteer and featured story
Working with the charity Refugees at Home contributed to a positive working relationship and they helped us identify more volunteer hosts to interview, while we helped boost their organisation’s profile:
“It’s been wonderful to work with Waltham Forest Council on the Stories of Sanctuary series. As a charity working with refugees and people seeking asylum, there are many sensitivities around the stories we tell and it was clear from the outset that Harshil and his team were approaching the project with the highest level of tact, thoughtfulness, and respect.
“For each of the stories featuring Refugees at Home hosts, we’ve seen a noticeable boost in followers and engagement on social media, and numerous positive comments. Many of our existing supporters have been heartened to see a London borough proudly expressing support for refugees, and from the response we’ve seen, we’re certain that there are many living within Walthamstow happy to see people with similar values putting them into action.”
-Ed Knight, Communications and Digital Media Manager, Refugees at Home
Conclusion – final reflections
The biggest takeaway from Stories of Sanctuary is that people connect with people. Emotional storytelling is at its most effective when it is authentic, respectful, and rooted in shared humanity. It also demonstrates the value of bold, values-led communications. As a local authority, we made the deliberate choice to stand with marginalised communities and highlight their stories. In doing so, we strengthened our message about what kind of borough we are, and what kind of community we want to be.
Your organisation may have different values than your own personal ones. But the power of comms is being able to dig deeper and focus on human stories. It’s why projects such as Humans of New York and A Mug of Life have been so impactful.
Every comms team loves to say that their borough is special, but I truly feel this. Waltham Forest has shown how the community has rallied against hate, and in late September 2025 we launched our new community cohesion campaign ‘Together we are Waltham Forest’, celebrating the brilliant people and communities that make up our borough, from Leyton to Chingford.
Ultimately, Stories of Sanctuary is a testament to the emotional power of storytelling when it is led with empathy and care. This campaign recognises people not as statistics or headlines, but as neighbours, friends, and fellow residents.
I’m proud to work for an organisation and serve a community that values the rights, dignity and hopes of migrants, refugees, and those seeking asylum.
Harshil Shah is a Senior Communications and Campaigns Officer at the London Borough of Waltham Forest. He has a passion for storytelling, LGBTQ+ rights and social justice, and is also co-chair of the council’s LGBTQ+ staff network, Out in the Forest.
He has experience in the charity sector and has worked abroad, before making the move to the public sector. Harshil was recently on the LGComms Future Leaders 2025 cohort. Outside of work he is a Bollywood dancer for Bollyqueer.
