Abstracts
Abstract
Scholarship on disaster response and recovery has focused on local communities as crucial in developing and implementing timely, effective, and sustainable supports. Drawing from interviews with refugee leaders conducted during the spring and summer of 2020 at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, this study examines crisis response activities of refugee-led grassroots groups, specifically within Bhutanese and Congolese refugee communities in a midwestern metropolitan area in the US resettlement context. Empirical findings illustrate how refugee-led groups provided case management, outreach, programming, and advocacy efforts to respond to the pandemic. These findings align with literature about community-based and strengths-based approaches to addressing challenges stemming from the pandemic. They also point to local embeddedness and flexibility as organizational characteristics that may have helped facilitate crisis response, thereby warranting reconsideration and re-envisioning of the role of refugee-led grassroots groups in crisis response.
Keywords:
- COVID-19,
- pandemic,
- crisis response,
- practice with refugees
Résumé
La recherche sur l’intervention et le rétablissement en cas de catastrophe s’est concentrée sur les communautés locales comme ayant un rôle crucial dans le développement et la mise en œuvre de soutiens opportuns, efficaces et durables. S’appuyant sur des entretiens avec des leaders réfugiés effectués au printemps et à l’été 2020 au début de la pandémie, cette étude examine les activités d’intervention en situation de crise menées par des groupes de base dirigés par des réfugiés, particulièrement au sein des communautés de réfugiés bhoutanais et congolais d’une région métropolitaine du Midwest dans le contexte de réinstallation des États-Unis. Les résultats empiriques illustrent comment les groupes dirigés par des réfugiés ont assuré la gestion de cas, les activités de rayonnement, la programmation ainsi que les efforts de plaidoyer en réponse à la pandémie. Ces résultats convergent avec la littérature sur une démarche de proximité et une approche axée sur les forces comme réponse aux défis issus de la pandémie. Ils soulignent également que l’intégration locale et la flexibilité sont des caractéristiques organisationnelles qui ont pu faciliter la réponse à la crise, cautionnant ainsi de reconsidérer et de ré-envisager le rôle des groupes de base dirigés par des réfugiés dans l’intervention en situation de crise.
Appendices
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