Community capacity building with refugee communities in exile - experience of STARTTS in Australia

Construyendo capacidad comunitaria con comunidades de refugiados en exilio - las experiencias de STARTTS en Australia

STARTTS approach to working with our client population involves conceptualizing the issues as a complex interplay between the consequences of torture and refugee trauma; the process of exile, migration and settlement; and normal life cycle events. Additionally, individual and environmental characteristics are taken into account. Not only does this interplay occur on individual and family levels, but also it is clearly visible on the level of refugee communities.

As refugee communities survive trauma and exile, the nature of relationships and structures inevitably change. Furthermore, a refugee community in exile, even though it is perceived by outsiders to be a "community", is usually a scattered group of individuals and families struggling to establish networks while dealing with psychosocial consequences of torture and refugee trauma.

Consequently, STARTTS work consists of a balance between community development and clinical approaches. These two facets of our work are seen as spots on a continuum rather than opposing philosophical and value-based positions. Additionally, STARTTS is firmly committed to community participation, empowerment and capacity building.

This paper explores the above theoretical frameworks as well as the actual community development work STARTTS has undertaken over the years. The examples analysed will include community infrastructure building, group-work, community participation, community skill development, and assisting the communities to access the external and recognise and utilise the internal resources. The paper will look at both strengths and challenges associated with these approaches, and propose a model for working with refugee communities in exile. The author argues for a systemic approach to this work where impact of trauma on communities is addressed on a community level through appropriate interventions.