While the media and popular culture may portray refugee camps mainly as places of desperation, human rights workers know that they are complex communities teeming with economic, social, and artistic life. Social-justice oriented theater professionals have found refugee camps to be a vital and vibrant place to practice their craft. Theater workshops are welcome breaks from the monotony of camp life and can be a much-needed opportunity for storytelling, cultural expression, and personal reflection. This work has increased in recent decades, with established refugee theater projects in France, Germany, Greece, Kenya, and Palestine just to name a few.

But like any human rights or social justice work, refugee theater projects must be culturally sensitive and ethically-responsible. Much of the current work owes a debt to the scholarship of Dwight Conquergood, a professor of Performance Studies and theater professional. His influential essay “Health Theatre in a Hmong Refugee Camp” detailed theatrical strategies and cross-cultural best practices that have been used to teach generations of theater and human rights professionals.

The essay is based on his work in 1985 at Refugee Camp Ban Vinai, Thailand. The camp was home to over 45,000 Hmong and other highland refugees who had fled Communist rule in neighboring Laos. Interestingly, Conquergood did not enter the camp as part of a theater program. At the time, the political situation in Thailand was considered unstable and the camps were closed to outside researchers. Conquergood was instead hired by the International Rescue Committee as part of their environmental health education program. He served as an ethnographic consultant and was tasked with developing programs to improve health and hygiene at the camp.

Rather than seeing the refugee camp as a place of lack or absence, Conquergood recognized that performance was already happening all around, including storytelling, folk singing, drumming, incense burning, lamentations for the dead, and shamanic practices. Refugee camps are rich with performance because displaced peoples must work hard to preserve their culture and way of life. Performance is a way to reconstitute their communities and add stability to the uncertainty of their daily lives. Performance is also a flexible medium and stories, songs, and dances can easily be altered to incorporate new material and reflect new surroundings. In short, performance is the perfect way to integrate an old way of life with a new reality.

Conquergood’s goal was to design health programming that was based around native beliefs and values that communicated to the residents in culturally appropriate ways. To do this, he drew on Hmong folklore, proverbs, stories, and songs to produce street performances using large puppets and animal sculptures. This imagery was already familiar to the camp residents and helped communicate his message. For example, a performance designed to increase awareness of rabies vaccines for camp dogs used a performer dressed as a chicken to deliver the informative message. While this might have seemed strange to Western camp workers, it made perfect sense to the residents. In Hmong culture, chickens are associated with powers of divination because they are the first to know when the sun comes up in the morning. Having a chicken character spread the message about rabies vaccines was both entertaining and persuasive.

However, any performance approach in which local knowledge is used by outsiders runs the risk of appropriate that local culture or using it as a tool for domination. Conquergood did not want to use community traditions to simply make residents submit unthinkingly to the demands of the camp administration. Instead he wanted his performances to be methods for developing “critical awareness.” In other words, he wanted to show the refugees new ways of thinking about their surroundings that would, in turn, help them choose to transform their behaviors. When trash became a problem in the camp, Conquergood and his performers built a giant puppet that they called Mother Clean who sang songs about health and sanitation. In their mountain homeland, the Hmong were accustomed to throwing their food waste out into nature where it would quickly become fertilizer or animal feed. But now that they were living in an incredibly dense refugee camp, these traditional practices were no longer sanitary. Rather than denigrating the refugees as dirty, the playful Mother Clean helped them think about their surroundings in a new way so they could independently choose a healthier lifestyle.

For these theater approaches to be effective, Conquergood was committed to what he called a “dialogical exchange,” an orientation of give-and-take in which every participant has something to teach as well as something to learn. Conquergood modeled this practice in his daily life as well as in his theater work. He respected the traditional Hmong healers and used their folk remedies for things like stomach ailments and small lacerations. But when he got more severely ill with Dengue fever, however, he sought treatment in a hospital in Singapore. After he returned to the camp, Conquergood found that the refugees, who were normally skeptical of Western medicine, exhibited great interest in his hospital treatment. Because Conquergood respected their traditions and techniques they were more willing to learn about his.

Toward the end of his essay Conquergood identifies some of the limits of his work in the Camp Ban Vinai. While he had great success with his performances for the refugees, he began to realize that the health professionals and human rights workers needed a similar kind of “consciousness-raising.” The camp workers wanted the Hmong to conform to their Western standards of cleanliness and order but were not interested in understanding the Hmong way of life. As a result, the Hmong were hesitant to seek out help or support from any of the camp aid workers. While human rights training has certainly evolved since Conquergood did his work in the 1980’s, it’s important to remember that it is not only refugees that can benefit from camp theater programs. These performances can build a bridge of understanding not only amongst the refugees themselves but also across cultures. More than entertainment or escape, theater can build community, foster understanding, and bring about real change.

Conquergood, Dwight. “Health Theatre in a Hmong Refugee Camp: Performance, Communication, and Culture.” TDR (1988-) 32, no. 3 (1988): 174-208.

The post Building Culture and Community through Theater in Refugee Camps appeared first on Human Rights Careers.

While many academics and professionals in the human rights field are familiar with how to work with refugees abroad and in camps, many face unexpected challenges while working with refugee communities domestically in the US. On home turf, it can be easy to forget where these individuals are coming from and the cultural, linguistic, and institutional differences that can create significant barriers and challenges for many refugees. Here are some things to keep in mind if you are considering working with refugees coming to America.

1. Nonverbal cues are often more important than words.
While some refugees might speak a little bit of English, most are coming to the US knowing very few words, if any. That means that every interaction will be through an interpreter, either in person or on the phone, if you aren’t lucky enough to know the language that they speak. While interpreters should be translating word-for-word, many clean up the language and emotion behind what people are saying. As a professional working with refugees, watching their body language and facial expressions and paying attention to their tone of voice can be extremely important in understanding what they are really trying to communicate. While they might be giving an answer that they think is what they should be saying, their actions and body language might show something completely different, which is important for you to know.

2. Be prepared for a lot of resistance.
One thing that all professionals working with refugees in the US would agree on is that some clients always fight for control. While services for refugees should be client-based, the professional is still in charge. Factors like PTSD, misunderstanding of services and culture, and even just the circumstances that most refugees are coming from often lead to a power struggle between client and service provider. Most professionals tend to have one of two approaches—back down and let them take control or cut them off from services. A true solution involves an approach somewhere between these two extremes. It’s important to set boundaries, roles, and rules at the beginning of services and to remind clients of those boundaries. Part of overcoming this challenge also involves persuasive speech—guide the conversation but let them come to conclusions and solutions on their own. Refugees are coming from situations where they had all control taken away from them, and part of working with them involves putting that power back in their hands in a healthy, effective way.

3. Half of your job will be advocating.
Services tailored to refugees are still pretty few and far between in the US, although they are growing. In many cases, the role of a case worker, service coordinator, or other professional working directly with refugees involves advocating to services providers about interpretation, equal rights, and cultural sensitivity. While laws exist to protect and help people like refugees, most service providers are still unaware of the rights refugees have. With language and cultural barriers refugees are often vulnerable with service providers who tend to move quickly through a system without much thought for the individual. Whether the problem is overpayment of welfare benefits, not using interpretation during medical appointments, or something else, those working directly with refugees in the US will have to spend time communicating their rights and service providers’ responsibilities.

4. Self-sufficiency will be much more valuable than hand-outs.
This is pretty standard knowledge for anyone in international development. But, that doesn’t mean it’s always easy to remember when you’re dealing with vulnerable people who are in need. Refugee resettlement agencies typically provide everything refugees need to furnish their homes and even pay for rent and utilities for the first few months. After that, though, families will still often have a lot of needs to be met, and most of them will immediately look to the agency to give them what they need. While this is sometimes appropriate, it is always best for professionals working with refugees to take the time to provide them with the skills and resources they need to thrive. This work is not glamorous; it usually involves tasks like showing families how to take a bus route to the doctor or helping them find the closest thrift store or even simple things like showing them how to write out a money order. Many clients will insist that they will be best served by having things given to them, but helping refugees take back control and power by gaining skills and resources is one of the best ways to make sure that they will live well.

5. Learn how to provide trauma-informed care.
Many agencies working with refugees will provide trainings throughout the year on dealing with people who are under extreme emotional stress. Even so, learning about how to provide trauma-informed care is extremely important for professionals working with these populations. These types of trainings can provide information about how to deal with mental health crises, how to respond when someone breaks down emotionally, and how to act sensitively towards clients without tip-toeing around them. Refugees have been through a lot, and some of them tend to panic when things start to go wrong. Keeping calm and talking them through situations to show them that they are not really in crisis is a useful skill. And keeping calm during an actual crisis is also really important to help clients feel some level of control. Even if you don’t know a client’s story, acting with care and sensitivity and providing structure through meetings will be a key piece in helping them succeed. Refugees need an environment that allows them to be vulnerable while still nudging them forward as they begin to build their lives in America. Trauma-informed care can help professionals working with refugees understand the best ways to interact with them and how to motivate them to move forward with their lives.

6. Speaking of trauma, mental health is something to take very seriously.
Mental health is a touchy subject in any culture, but it tends to be an especially delicate topic in cultures that refugees are coming from. Women are more likely to accept help from a therapist, but men are extremely vulnerable to untreated mental health issues due to cultural standards. This is where trauma-informed care, along with picking up on nonverbal clues, becomes extremely helpful. Some agencies will provide training for mental health first aid, but if yours doesn’t, most cities have places that will offer the course for free. Even when clients are going to therapists on a regular basis, they aren’t necessary addressing all of the relevant issues. External stressors like money, weather change, housing issues, family problems, and even culture shock can push them into a crisis. Helping refugees understand that mental health is an important thing to talk about and encouraging them to seek professional help is necessary for professionals working in these communities.

7. Learn how to care for yourself.
As with most human rights issues, working with refugees can be physically, mentally, and emotionally draining. One of the best things you can do for your clients is to take time to refresh and relax. In jobs dealing with human rights, especially working directly with people, it’s easy to work overtime physically and “take work home” emotionally. Leaving stress and emotions at the door is important for yourself, your friends/family, and your clients. Spend weekends catching up with friends, exercising, going to events, etc. See a counselor or therapist if you need to. Leave room for yourself to process, destress, and express. Find a balance between removing yourself from reality and delving too deeply into it. Burnout is easy in any field working directly with people, and it’s especially easy while working with people who have experienced immense and prolonged trauma, so taking a break, taking vacation, learning to express artistically, and being able to process through emotions are extremely important in this line of work.

Working to resettle refugees in the US presents challenges not faced in the field, but it also presents the rewards of watching families thrive and succeed in a place where they finally have control and freedom. Learning how to interact with them, what their needs are, and how to avoid burnout are just a few important skills needed to do culturally appropriate, sustainable, and effective work in refugee communities. Those who are interested in working in this particular human rights field should consider the skills needed to work directly with clients and think about what role they would best fit in working with these communities. Most in the fields of human rights, policy, and development will be looking to eventually move into administrative or management roles, and having direct experience with refugee populations can be extremely valuable in working to help them at the administrative level.

The post 7 Crucial Things to Know About Working with Refugees appeared first on Human Rights Careers.