Ms Sophie Nelson:

There is absolutely a belief that women can thrive if they are given the necessary tools to be empowered to do that.

The North-South collaboration was very useful in terms of the critical epistemologies across borders project. One of the activities was working through the common perceptions of healthcare, North and South, where people from the North were asked what they think of when they think of the healthcare system in the South and vice versa. For the North, people from the South broadly said that they see it as broken, on its knees and stretched to capacity. The people from the North who commented on the healthcare system in the South said that it is unaffordable, expensive and privatised. Then, when we worked through some of those issues and there were discussions, it was found that it is not actually unaffordable to everyone in the South and there are different things like blue cards, different accessibility measures for people who cannot afford it and so on. It was similar with those from the North. It was a kind of myth-busting activity but people came together to discuss innovative solutions, what an all-island healthcare system would look like, what that meant for people and how important it was that it was free for some people and to maintain that. That only happened by working together, not just reading the headlines but actually talking to each other. Some of the women who we went away with might not have had the opportunity to engage with people across the Border without that safe space. It was very useful and interesting. It is definitely work that needs to be invested in further.