Empowerment as a tool for a healthy resettlement: a case of new African settlers in South Australia

Abstract

Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to describe the application of empowerment and the role that it plays in fostering community participation, community integration and in enabling a healthy re-settlement of culturally and linguistically diverse migrants who have recently arrived in Australia from Sub Saharan Africa.Design/methodology/approach -The paper's approach is a discussion expressing the views of authors supported by the relevant literature drawn from a wide range of sources on migration, settlement, health, social, environment, cultural and public health issues. The African community and its peak organisation, the African Communities Council of South Australia is presented and various empowerment strategies used by the council are discussed as a healthy model for empowering new settlers in the new environment.Findings -The first part of the paper describes the migration of African migrants in South Australia and sets the scenario describing the current state of these migrants including opportunities and challenges they face in the new environment. The second part describes theories and contexts of community empowerment, relationship between community empowerment and a healthy settlement; and the relevance and implications of community empowerment. The third part draws the above context and the empowerment strategy is specifically related to the African Community in South Australia. The empowerment strategy in this case represents a wide range of interventions aimed to equip new African migrants to a successful and a healthy resettlement and integration in South Australia. By addressing a wide range of settlement challenges and issues, the strategy employs concepts of empowerment that have been used in public health in general, health promotion, health education, communications, community engagement and community development.Originality/value -The paper highlights challenges and opportunities for new migrants in the new environment and argues that community empowerment is an important enabling tool for a healthy settlement, particularly for people with refugee backgrounds. The paper also acknowledges that the community development approach has assisted the target group and has improved their ability to overcome challenges associated with settlement through capacity building, social capital and community connectivity.

Addressing childhood undernutrition in Tanzania: Challenges and opportunities

“…It also influences change from the grassroots or local levels and it increases individual and community control over various program that impact on their health [14][15]. Empowerment has also been described as one of the pillars of Primary Health Care (PHC) worldwide [15][16].…”

“…It also influences change from the grassroots or local levels and it increases individual and community control over various program that impact on their health [14][15]. Empowerment has also been described as one of the pillars of Primary Health Care (PHC) worldwide [15][16]. As such, empowerment can be in many forms including health [17,18], education [19], economic, political and gender empowerment [15,20].…”

“…Empowerment has also been described as one of the pillars of Primary Health Care (PHC) worldwide [15][16]. As such, empowerment can be in many forms including health [17,18], education [19], economic, political and gender empowerment [15,20]. Each of these has its own strengths in addressing childhood undernutrition issues [15,19].…”

“…As such, empowerment can be in many forms including health [17,18], education [19], economic, political and gender empowerment [15,20]. Each of these has its own strengths in addressing childhood undernutrition issues [15,19]. For example education empowerment has been described as a strategy which enables communities to value and analyse their own experience and create their own plans of action to meet the identified needs.…”

“…Community empowerment addresses the social, cultural, political and economic determinants that underpin undernutrition, and seeks to build partnerships with other relevant sectors in finding solutions [15,18,21]. It has been explained that community empowerment may address health issues within the context of health promotion by using community development continuum model that progresses across the levels of empowerment [ 17,20].…”