Refugee Aid Research Articles

Flucht vor humanitärer Hilfe in Lagern? Reflexionen zur Verbindung von Flüchtlingslagern, eigenständigem urbanen Leben, Bewältigungshandeln und Frieden

Most refugees flee violent conflicts and seek peace and safety in host countries in the global south, where humanitarian refugee aid appears essential. However, for access to aid, refugees are often settled in camps, which are criticized for strict hierarchies, limited livelihoods and prevalent violence. This article asks whether some refugees choose to live in urban areas to get away from camps. Based on empirical research in Uganda, the article centers on refugees’ narratives to shed light on their experiences in camps and their reasons for living in Uganda’s capital Kampala despite difficulties. Although many refugees’ decisions for the city are strongly influenced by seeking to avoid camps, a clear separation of camps and cities as sole sites of residence cannot be drawn. Refugees rather cope with issues strategically, for which questions of time and space are key. Their mobilities help the people as they strive to deal with the past, improve current livelihoods and find peaceful settings.

Female Refugees in Rural Germany: A Local Aid Agency's Efforts to Build on Women's Experiences and Needs

Female Refugees in Rural GermanyA Local Aid Agency's Efforts to Build on Women's Experiences and Needs Ina C. Seethaler (bio) On a rainy December morning in 2015, I walked across a parking lot in Wertheim, a small rural town in southwest Germany. Stuffed animals and children's books in hand, I was about to meet Walter Hörnig, one of the chairpersons of a local refugee aid agency that I had contacted while visiting family during my winter break. Like many other Germans, I wanted to do more than donate money and, in addition, offer hands-on-help welcoming refugees in my native community. I expected to be asked to sort through donated clothes. Instead, I received the opportunity to meet refugee families, to challenge public assumptions about refugees, and to reflect on displacement from a feminist perspective. The idea behind Walter's and my house visits that morning was for me to introduce myself to refugee families so that, over the next weeks, I could offer to return to the apartments into which they had moved as part of a re-settlement program to take kids on excursions or help with everyday tasks that demanded the assistance of a fluent German speaker. We visited three families that day. Rarely have I been welcomed into a home this warmly. Everywhere we went, we were offered tea and snacks and people insisted that we stay for lunch. Already on that first day, many refugees generously shared some of their experiences with me in a mix of English and rudimentary German. What touched me especially were the women's stories—mostly ignored by mass media busy worrying about Muslim men changing German "culture." One account stood out due to its seeming impossibility: Maya was five months pregnant when she walked across Hungary in winter with her husband and toddler.1 She was determined to do everything to keep her children safe. Zainah was "luckier"; she, her husband, and their two small children made it to a reception camp in Turkey, where her husband left them to continue the dangerous journey on his own. He was successful and able to fly Zainah and the children to Germany after one year. [End Page 167] On later trips to Germany I visited with more families and attended conversation sessions over coffee, community summer festivals, and other events. I would hear many more of these kinds of experiences that speak to refugee women's willpower. Too often, humanitarian organizations still perceive refugees as passive recipients of their aid. In fact, as Jane Freedman elaborates, problems in trying to "help" refugee women and asylum seekers often arise from representations of them as without agency. Due to such misperceptions, some aid organizations will not ask refugee women for their input and fail to appreciate their power.2 Yet in my conversations with refugee women, it became clear that they do not see themselves merely as victims but also as resources and change-makers, which makes it essential to include their input and voices in the design and assessment of relief programs for displaced people. Their stories defy gender norms regarding agency, family protection, and political activism; their experiences challenge our understandings of war and are hard to deal with on an emotional level; they demand accountability on the part of politicians, the media, and non-government organizations. And yet they often remain invisible due to their gender, economic status, citizenship status, and religious background. Because of their identities, refugee women in Germany live with varying and interrelated patterns and configurations of oppression. As their experiences are shaped by sexism, imperialism, racism, xenophobia, and Islamophobia, an intersectional look at how they deal with displacement outside of refugee camps is indispensable. The social construction of gender causes differently gendered groups to experience displacement in diverse ways. Yet only in the past two decades has gender finally become a stronger focus in efforts to analyze forced migration and support those affected by it. But as Jane Freedman, Zeynep Kivilcim, and Nurcan Özgür Baklacioğlu elaborate, "while the UNHCR and other international organizations and NGOs have adopted gender mainstreaming as a policy commitment, in practice gender issues are...

Do good, stay well. Well-being and work satisfaction among German refugee helpers: A national cross-sectional study.

BackgroundSince 2015, more than 3 million refugees have reached the European Union. In order to receive and integrate them, societies heavily rely on relief organizations and private initiatives. Yet the well-being, work-satisfaction and possible health implications for refugee helpers have not been adequately addressed.MethodsIn a German national cross-sectional study, we gathered socio-demographic data on refugee helpers. Work satisfaction was examined by means of Neuberger and Allerbeck’s Work Description Inventory. We screened for depression by using the 5-item WHO Well-Being Index (WHO-5), and for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) using the PTSD Short Screening Scale (PTSD-7). 1712 questionnaires were analyzed.ResultsFemales accounted for 73.4% (1235), the mean age was 52.0 years (SD: 14.4). 61.6% were academics (1042). 87.0% (1454) were voluntary helpers who invested 9.4 hours (SD: 8.9) per week. Refugee helpers were more satisfied with the content than with the conditions or the organization of their work. Their work satisfaction and overall life satisfaction reached higher values than in representative samples. The mean WHO-5 index for refugee helpers was 68.2 points (SD: 19.0). Positive depression screening was found in 17.3% (226). 982 (57.4%) had experienced a traumatic event in their past or witnessed it during their work in refugee aid. 33 (2.8%) of the helpers had a positive PTSD screening.ConclusionsRefugee helpers deliver invaluable services to migrants and receiving communities. Our data indicates above average well-being as well as work-satisfaction. Psychological traumatization is found frequently but fortunately PTSD is rare. All efforts should be made to uphold helpers’ keen spirit and contributions. They should be screened regularly with regards to work satisfaction, well-being and mental health. As part of a comprehensive health promotion strategy they should be instructed about depression, psychological trauma, PTSD and ways to find help.

Who welcomes? The geographies of refugee aid as care work – commentary to Gill

Drawing on my recent research with aid workers in Jordan and Lebanon, as well as on examples from Greece and Italy, in this commentary I propose the concept of care work as one of the possible ways to achieve a grounded critical understanding of welcome, one that goes beyond solidarity versus institutionalization, bureaucracy versus generosity and state versus civil society dichotomies. Framing the issue in such a way means asking three fundamental questions: not only, as Gill poignantly does, what is welcome, but also where is welcome actually located and, most importantly, who welcomes. These questions illuminate the many overlooked forms of affective and physical labour without which state-centred, institutional, and internationally organized aid and “welcome” would not be possible. The task, I contend, is to unearth the labour of care that the governance of migration and refuge requires, labour that is mostly feminized, racialized, and precarious. By illuminating the forms of care and interdependencies upon which the reproduction of our societies depends – in all its aspects, including border regimes – this perspective opens up an emancipatory pathway to the politicization of welcoming and aid to migrants and refugees, alternative to humanitarian discourses.

Socially Destructive? Effects of Negative and Hateful User Comments on Readers’ Donation Behavior toward Refugees and Homeless Persons

This study investigated the effects of negative-civil and hateful online user comments against refugees on the amount of money readers donate to a refugee aid organization or an organization that supports homeless people. The results of an online experiment reveal an indirect negative effect of hateful comments on the amount of money donated to refugees (i.e., reading hateful comments led to less money donated). However, participants donated more money to homeless people when they read hateful comments. This implies context-dependent assimilation and contrast effects of hateful statements against refugees. Negative-civil comments had no effect on participants’ donations.

Health care provision for refugees in Germany \u2013 one-year evaluation of an outpatient clinic in an urban emergency accommodation

BackgroundIn 2015, Germany recorded the highest rates of refugees since the early 1990s. Access to medical care is a legally regulated fundamental element of aid for refugees. In practice, there are several hurdles such as language barriers and legal regulations. In response to the massively increased need, special outpatient services for refugees were started in several German cities. In Cologne, an outpatient clinic (OPD) was established in the largest emergency accommodation centre for refugees supported by the Cologne municipality and operated by the German Red Cross and physicians from the Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians. This study reports experiences of the first year of the OPD regarding structure, processes and utilization.MethodsEmploying mixed methods, between May and December 2015 cross sectional pseudonymized data from patients’ contacts were collected, coded in the International Classification of Primary Care (ICPC) and evaluated. Infrastructure, equipment, process organisation and function of the OPD were assessed during five participatory observations and triangulated with results of a self-administered questionnaire for staff and four qualitative interviews with key informants.ResultsDuring the observation period a total of 2205 persons (67% male) stayed in the emergency accommodation and 984 patient contacts (51% male) were registered, mainly by young persons from Western Balkan countries and Syria. Medical treatment was sought primarily for acute respiratory-, loco-motor-system- and skin symptoms followed by chronic physical diseases. Headache, back and neck pain and acute respiratory infection were the most frequent diagnoses. Questionnaires and interviews among staff revealed language barriers and psycho-trauma as the most frequently reported challenges. Equipment and staffing was adequate, but patient documentation was not systematic, leading to loss of information.ConclusionTo facilitate refugees’ appropriate access to health care, the OPD was seen as functional for this refugee accommodation centre. Need was recognised for standardized, data protective documentation and a health passport for clients for medical information. Psychological support for refugees needs expansion taking legal circumstances and coverage of costs into consideration. To improve patient communication employees working with refugees should be offered an introduction to culturally sensitive understanding of health and illness.

Makeshift markets and grassroots reponsibilization

ABSTRACTPrior research has yielded insights into how market actors generate permanent, institutionalized structures. Investigate the emergence of a temporary marketplace, characterized by flexible socio-material constellations. We draw on ethnographic data collected within a refugee aid initiative, which assembled during the in 2015–2016, and was a response to the failure of institutional structures. We map out a process through which individuals are collectively moved to respond form social networks, and engage in market-making practices. We identify this process as the emergence of a “makeshift” market, and argue that it is a complementary form of institutional work, constituted by a grassroots process of responsibilization. We contribute to the literature on responsibilization and market dynamics by discussing (1) the emergence and decline of temporary and complementary marketplace structures and (2) mapping out a responsibilization process driven by moral outrage at the experiential level.

‘These mountains are unlike ours’: my interactions with camp refugees in Greece

The recent regional crises affecting the Middle East and Mediterranean have seen masses of people move away from conflict and devastation to safer territories. A large movement has occurred to the European nations bordering these conflict zones. Greece, along with other countries, has become a focal point for refugees avoiding warfare and daily struggle from said regions, seeking asylum and safety. The dangerous journeys by land and sea are risks taken by many to escape atrocities and disaster. This case-report aims to highlight aspects of this migration from conflict zones through a simple conversation between the refugee community and aid relief workers. The focus of the paper is on the Yazidi community from Iraq, who were temporarily accommodated in campsites in Greece, having suffered horrendously. The events described by the refugee community are conveyed in English, as translated by the author from Arabic

East Africa Refugee Crisis: Causes of Tensions and Conflicts between the Local Community and Refugees in Kakuma Refugee Camp, Kenya

The study investigated the refugee and host community conflicts in Kakuma refugee camp located in Turkana County, in the North-West parts of Kenya. The study classified factors causing tension and conflicts between the refugees and the local community into four main categories; political and security, limited resources, social welfare and socio-cultural factors. The following three main outstanding points explains what causes tensions and conflicts; firstly, the host community feels refugees are more economically privileged because of the aid they get from refugees aid organizations. Secondly, the host community population has been outnumbered by the refugees’ population that has created fear and tension since the host can do less to stop refugees from doing anything harmful to them. Thirdly, competition as a result of the limited resources such as land, water and wood collection in the penurious semi-arid area where the refugees and host community lives. This study recommends that in order to foster a better existence amongst the refugees and host community, refugees’ agencies should tailor their programs to development of both the host community and refugees as suggested in Refugee Aid and Development Theory.

Crisis Response via Dynamic Capabilities: A Necessity in NPOs\u2019 Capability Building

Dynamic capability research increasingly seeks to identify mechanisms founding dynamic capabilities because this microfoundation provides options for influencing the application of dynamic capabilities. Dynamic capabilities in turn support organizations to achieve continuous organizational change. We pursue deeper insight into the microfounding mechanisms of dynamic capabilities with regard to management-related variables. Survey data from hot spots of refugee crisis 2016 all across Austria allow us to examine how managerial mechanisms on microlevel and dynamic capabilities on macro-level are linked and particularly how managers can influence the application of dynamic capabilities. Data evaluation is based on mediation analysis. Study reveals that participative leadership fosters dynamic capabilities of NPOs active in refugee aid. Further, we provide evidence that the manager´s perception, how self-determined he/she is and how impactful his/her actions are, enhances the application of dynamic capabilities.

Contextualizing entrepreneurial identity among Syrian refugees in Jordan

This article aims to contextualize the entrepreneurial identity (EI) of Syrian refugees living outside refugee camps in Jordan. The research adopts a social lens to consider the situation Syrians find themselves in by drawing on the work of Bourdieu. A qualitative design is applied to explore the different experiences and perceptions that pervade refugee stories and the work of refugee aid agencies. By contextualizing EI in the Jordanian context, the article reveals how a destabilized refugee habitus based on an embodied disposition of survivability is emerging. The article makes an empirical and conceptual contribution by highlighting how the entrepreneurial activities of Syrian refugees are driven by their experiences of the harsh social conditions they find themselves in.

Aid for Refugees: Religion, Migration, and Poor Relief in Sixteenth-Century Geneva

ABSTRACTDuring the sixteenth century, migration of mainly French Protestants into Geneva resulted in a significant refugee community dedicated to discipline and poor relief. This article examines the ongoing impact of migration on the formation of religious communities and their correlation with the development of poor relief funds in a leading Reformation city. The social dislocation of religious refugees fostered a high commitment to their new identity as advocates of the Reformed religion and proponents of poor relief for foreigners. John Calvin, chief minister and French immigrant, articulated his ideals for establishing a truly Christianized community through the institutions of the church, the consistory and the Bourse française (French Fund) to support the formation of a distinctive religious identity. This article argues that aid for the refugees became an integral part of establishing this religious and social reformation from the 1540s to the 1560s as waves of refugees landed in Geneva.

Volunteering to Support Refugees: A Question of One’s Scope of Justice

Who volunteers on behalf of refugees, on the basis of what motives? Questionnaire data (N = 271) reveal that people who volunteer, and those who do not, share differentiated perceptions of fairness about refugee aid. However, volunteers have a broader and more inclusive scope of justice than a matched group of non-volunteers. The scope of justice proves to be a powerful construct when explaining the willingness to volunteer beyond group membership (volunteers vs. non-volunteers) and the functional approach. Perceptions of fairness, especially the scope of justice, should therefore be considered in order to understand differences in reactions towards refugees if moral exclusion is to be avoided.

Distress, Main Burdens, Engagement Motivators and Needs of Fulltime and Volunteer Refugee Aid Workers

In the psychosomatic department of the University Hospital of Erlangen trainings were conducted for active refugee aid workers with start in January, 2016. Meanwhile 49 helpers participated in the training and 45 of them filled out a survey questionnaire. Perceived distress when providing care for refugees, as well as engagement motivation and further training needs were explored. Furthermore, depressive symptoms as well as the prevalence of traumatic experiences were investigated. The main burden was experienced through lacking freedom of action on the background of legal regulations. Furthermore dissociative symptoms (15.4%) and aggressive behavior (26.9%) of refugees were reported as distress factors. To help others proved to be the highest motivator for their work with refugees. Only 2 workers (4.4%) showed elevated depressive symptom manifestations. In contrast, 93.3% of refugee helpers had experienced a traumatic event personally or as a witness. For the helpers the greatest training needs were the recognition of mental health problems and to learn concrete intervention strategies to help those affected.

Humanitarian security in Jordan’s Azraq Camp

Azraq, a new camp for Syrian refugees in the Jordanian desert, presents an unprecedented integration of humanitarian service delivery and harsh security measures. I argue that Azraq’s ‘innovative’ order can only be explained in reference to three security claims that international refugee aid answers to: the claim to secure Syrian refugees, the claim to secure the Jordanian state and the claim to secure aid workers. Implementing these claims entails contradictory practices, which should create dilemmas for humanitarian aid, yet in Azraq these practices merge with each other. This merging (or integration) is aided by the humanitarian sector’s eager embrace of hi-tech solutions, especially digital data management. The article contributes to the growing debate about how security is articulated in the humanitarian arena by placing this debate’s key findings into conversation within a richly researched study of Azraq’s ‘material assemblage’ (Hilhorst and Jansen, 2010; Meiches, 2015). Further, the article emphasizes the importance of the under-researched area of aid organizations’ own security management.

Seeing Like a Refugee Agency: A Short History of UNHCR Classifications in Central Africa (1961–2015)

This article looks at the evolution of international refugee protection, using the refugee classifications of UNHCR as an entry point. It is argued that, since the creation of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), access to refugee aid has been globalized but has also become more and more stratified. The UNHCR has expanded its activities beyond the frontiers of Europe, but has also tailored aid for specific groups. This is because protection work increasingly articulates different modes of classifying refugees. Three modes of ordering are explored here in the Central African case: the legal approach , the labour (or developmental) approach and the basic needs (or vulnerability) approach. These modes refer to different regimes of action, different actors of protection and eventually different subjectivities. Each mode of classification , it is argued, is the product of a specific period of the UNHCR's history.

GWU Group Helps Train Refugee Aid Workers

GWU Group Helps Train Refugee Aid Workers

A Serious Video Game To Support Decision Making On Refugee Aid Deployment Policy

The success of refugee support operations depends on the ability of humanitarian organizations and governments to deploy aid effectively. These operations require that decisions on resource allocation are made as quickly as possible in order to respond to urgent crises and, by anticipating future developments, remain adequate as the situation evolves. Agent-based modeling and simulation has been used to understand the progression of past refugee crises, as well as a way to predict how new ones will unfold. In this work, we tackle the problem of refugee aid deployment as a variant of the Robust Facility Location Problem (RFLP). We present a serious video game that functions as an interface for an agent-based simulation run with data from past refugee crises. Having obtained good approximate solutions to the RFLP by implementing a game that frames the problem as a puzzle, we adapted its mechanics and interface to correspond to refugee situations. The game is intended to be played by both subject matter experts and the general public, as a way to crowd-source effective courses of action in these situations.

Religious Identity and Experiences of Displacement: An Examination into the Discursive Representations of Syrian Refugees and Their Effects on Religious Minorities Living in Jordan

This article explores how religious identity is related to experiences of and responses to displacement. It does so by examining discursive representations of Syrian refugees, their effects on religious minorities among the Syrian refugee population in Jordan and responses to religion in the Syrian humanitarian crisis by humanitarian actors. It finds that limited engagement with religious identity in displacement is in part due to (mis)interpretations of humanitarian principles of neutrality and universality and widespread assumptions held about religion as either non-essential or divisive. It argues that these limited views overlook the complex ways that resources, power, place and identity interact in practice. The article shows how an exclusion of religion in displacement affects religious minorities in relation to their wellbeing, security and protection, and access to humanitarian services. In particular, Syrian Christian and Syrian Druze refugees living in urban centres in Jordan experience isolation, insecurity and discrimination because of their religious identity, revealing the importance of the religious dimension in displacement despite humanitarian desires to avoid or downplay religion. It argues that understanding these experiences is essential to enhancing more inclusive refugee aid and protection for a range of refugee populations.

L’aide aux réfugiés juifs du Maroc pendant la Seconde Guerre mondiale

This article studies the two main Jewish refugee aid committees: the Tangier committee and the Casablanca committee. That said, aid also came from other cities, such as Mogador, Marrakesh, Meknes and Fez. Community leaders constantly made sure that refugee aid was on the agenda and they responded favorably to requests for assistance and cooperation by the main organized committees in Casablanca and Tangier.Morocco was not a country where Jewish emigres were integrated and it was only under the particular circumstances of the war that it became a transit country. It was merely a crossroads, a country that helped direct the flow of emigres to other destinations.As in the case of many other rescue and aid operations during the Holocaust, the extent of the operations in Morocco was determined by individuals’ spontaneous commitment and their determination to act, despite the difficulties and dangers.