Abstract
Due to experiences of forced migration, a large proportion of resettled refugee families arrive in resettlement countries with low levels of education, limited official language fluency, fractured family relationships, and less than optimal physical and mental health. These pre-migration determinants intersect with systemic barriers in ways that make it extremely difficult for refugees to secure employment/income security, access health and settlement services, and pursue their educational and other goals. This chapter discusses the role that newcomer refugee youth play in helping their families resettle in response to systemic post-migration barriers.
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Notes
- 1.
‘Peer researchers’ are members of the community of interest who are involved in a community based research project as co-researchers.
- 2.
We use ‘appreciative inquiry framework’ broadly to refer to parallel bodies of work that depart from “deficit” “problem” or “needs” focused methods of inquiry towards documenting sources and agency of positive change within people, organizations, and communities. This includes appreciative inquiry framework promoted by Cooperider and Srivastav (1987) about organizational change and the ‘asset mapping’ approach put forth by Kretzmann and McKnight’s (1993). Our use of this framework is particularly grounded on Paulo Friere’s work on critical dialogical inquiry that seek to recognize and build on subversive capacities of marginalized people specifically to transform systemic inequalities, including inequities in asset distribution and impediments to change.
- 3.
Canada receives between 25,000 to 35,000 refugees every year; this represents about 10–12 % of the roughly 250,000 ‘permanent residents’ that settle in Canada annually (CIC 2009). On average, about 11,000 refugees come as “sponsored” refugees under the Refugee and Humanitarian Resettlement stream: 7,500 as Government-Assisted Refugees (GARs) and 3,500 as Privately Sponsored Refugees (PSRs). Roughly 12,000 to 19,000 come to Canada through the “In-Canada Asylum” stream in which people apply as refugee claimants upon entering Canada and then become “permanent residents” once their claim process is approved by a quasi-judiciary body called the Immigration and Refugee Board. The remaining 5,000 settle in Canada as family dependents of people who have come as refugees (CIC 2008). From 2000 to 2009, about 280,000 refugees have settled in Canada of which 62,000 (21 %) are youth between the ages of 15–24.
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Shakya, Y. et al. (2014). Newcomer Refugee Youth as ‘Resettlement Champions’ for their Families: Vulnerability, Resilience and Empowerment. In: Simich, L., Andermann, L. (eds) Refuge and Resilience. International Perspectives on Migration, vol 7. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-7923-5_9
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