Perspectives in International Social Work
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5
This study investigates the significance mindfulness, self-care, and mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS) practices hold for (female) residents in Za’atari Refugee Camp. The Syrian Uprising of 2011 has caused approximately five million Syrians to seek refuge in neighboring countries (Operational Data Portal 2024b). Jordan, as one of the neighboring countries, is currently hosting approximately 618,973 Syrian refugees (Operational Data Portal 2024b). Approximately 78,000 live in Za’atari Refugee Camp (UNHCR 2024b). While research on refugees’ experiences, mindfulness, and MHPSS exist, the researcher identified a research gap of qualitative and participatory studies concerned about the significance of the practices that aim at alleviating suffering among refugees. This study captures and displays the opinions, understandings, and perceptions of those affected by displacement and encampment. The study consists of twelve semi-structured interviews. Four interviews were conducted with female residents of Za’atari Refugee Camp. Eight interviews were held with MHPSS professionals from various international and national non-governmental organizations (INGO, NGO), and governmental organizations. Additionally, a participatory asset mapping workshop was conducted with seventeen female residents.
The study demonstrates that mindfulness based-stress reduction (MBSR), self-care, and other MHPSS support programs provide refugees with the chance to regain control, increase selfconfidence, self-awareness, and build strength, consciousness, and resilience. These practices help refugees to cope with encampment and represent hope, purpose, empowerment, and have improved physical and mental well-being. While participants reflected that through MBSR practices they have become calmer, stronger, and more confident individuals, family and religion are the most important self-care techniques and represent safety, power, strength, and comfort. Through MHPSS programs refugees can regain relative stability, acquire skills, and gain a sense of purpose.
4
When the local communities of the Greek island of Lesvos first attracted media attention in 2015, locals displayed remarkable hospitality, engaged in acts of globally commended solidarity, and demonstrated unwavering compassion towards anyone arriving on their shores. However, the island underwent a profound transition when so called "refugee crisis" unfolded, and local communities increasingly resorted to aggression and acts of violence.
This article puts forward the argument that one central contributing factor in the development of aggressive attitudes and behaviors in the local population of Lesvos, was losing a sense of agency, which occurred when international humanitarian actors arrived on the island to provide much needed relief.
Combining conceptual frameworks with personal observations made on Lesvos between 2020 and 2021, the article examines the evolving situation on the island through three interconnected sections. Section 2 begins by exploring how local residents initially asserted their agency, drawing on historical migration patterns and highlighting a longstanding link between local identity and solidarity. Building on this foundation, section 3 then applies the frustration-aggression theory to analyze how this sense of agency began to diminish over time, and how its loss contributed to the emergence of increasingly aggressive attitudes and behaviors. This trajectory subsequently leads into section 4, which further describes the consequences of lacking agency, and examines the functions that the acts of violence occurring on the island may have served for those involved. Lastly, the implications of this analysis for actors in the humanitarian fi eld are discussed, and suggestions for further research are made.
3
This research uses the Ethnography method to analyse the integration of the so called “mail order brides” based on interviews held with eight different Southeast Asian women.
These women were four Vietnamese, one Chinese, one Malaysian, one Indonesian, and one woman from Myanmar who had lived in Taiwan for more than 20 years. The interviews about their experiences were conducted in their working place or at home.
Furthermore, this research includes an observation conducted during the interview placing attention on how they react to the Taiwanese society. The observation and information from the interviews were summarized in a research diary which also included a self-reflection of the researcher.
A focus is put on the marriage life of the New Inhabitant woman and their integration into the Taiwanese society.
From the 1960s until the 1990s, Taiwan’s government did not have extensive laws in place to protect these migrants. Private agencies abused this opportunity to profit excessively, without thinking of how the new life in Taiwan would be like for the “mail-order brides”.
In the beginning of the 1990s, the Taiwanese government started to put some policies into effect to tackle and limit this new phenomenon. The Taiwanese policy changed again in 2004 when the Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Education publicly denounced these transnational marriages as troublesome and urged the “foreign brides” to control their fertility, as their children’s poor educational level would deteriorate the education level of the Taiwanese population.
2
This text is a continuation of Part One: “Social work in the face of crises and disasters. A case study of Lebanon in the years between 1975-1990 and after the Beirut explosion of August, 4th 2020”. Part One presents a brief overview of social workers’ field initiatives which were carried out during the years of war through social institutions which played a prominent role during that period, where these entire experiences formed the material of forementioned conducted research. This report - Part Two - presents a recall all these experiences individually and describe in more detail the social initiatives that existed in different regions in Lebanon from 1975-1990.
1
This paper aims to identify the most prominent events that Lebanon has gone through during the years 1975-1990 and after the explosion of August 4th, 2020, events which have had an effect on social work. The study looks on the aftermath of the explosion as well as scrutinizing it from a historical perspective.
Experiences and initiatives of social workers in time period 1975-1990 were scrutinized by interviews with Lebanese social work pioneers. These findings were then compared with the experiences from the social interventions after the August 4th explosion in Beirut. The report provides insights into the development of Social Work in Lebanon and professional perspectives about Social Work in crisis contexts.