Photo by Miko Guziuk.

Our purpose

To foster meaningful partnerships that engage and enhance the rights and power of people in migration as their own agents of change.

Our principles

Lighthouse Partnership is a not-for-profit, values-based organisation. Our principles guide how we implement, operate and communicate and ensure we situate people and their experiences front and centre in our work.

Voice and participation

We recognise that each individual, community group and context is unique in their experiences, perspectives, culture and history, and each has a right to self-representation. Communities should set their priorities and agendas and have power in decision-making processes that affect their lives.  We continuously seek to enhance voice and participation of affected communities in our own work and in the work of other organisations and stakeholders.

Equity and intersectionality

All people and communities should have unhindered access to services and supports that afford dignity and human rights. People adversely affected by migration and displacement can experience an interplay of different forms of direct and indirect discrimination, whether it’s based on legal status, gender, race, age, class, socioeconomic status, physical or mental ability, gender or sexual identity, or faith. We strive to be conscious of and highlight the compounding effects of intersectional disadvantage when designing, delivering and evaluating programs. 

Evidence of lived experience

Evidence is crucial in guiding decision-making and should be gathered from a wide variety of stakeholders particularly from those with lived experiences. Embedding evidence of lived experience in designing, delivering and evaluating programs has the potential to create more targeted, relevant and effective solutions to entrenched social issues, particularly when it is combined with continued and active participation of affected communities. 

Complexity and adaptation

To address persistent and complex social challenges, we must recognise that we cannot know in advance whether a strategy or intervention will work. There are many things we don’t fully understand about these social challenges and they are constantly changing. To work effectively in complex environments, we must continuously seek to learn more about social challenges together with communities and other key stakeholders, and build on our collective past experiences and learning. We must design interventions expecting that we will fail in some respects, so that we deliberately experiment, evaluate, learn and adapt.