JLI Refugee & Forced Migration Hub: Roundtable Series
Roundtable 3: Engaging with faith actors to support social cohesion for refugees and forced migrants
Event Summary
Between October and November 2023, the JLI Refugees & Forced Migration Learning Hub convened a series of roundtables on thematic issues that intersect with religions, faith, refugees and forced migration. The third in the series, which occurred on 6 December 2023, focused on the role of religion and faith actors in social cohesion interventions for refugees and forced migrants.
Read summaries for the other roundtables here:
- Capacity building and capacity sharing with refugees and IDPs: case studies and lessons learned
- Faith-sensitive and culturally-sensitive approaches to mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS) for refugees and forced migrants
For this meeting, JLI brought together academics and practitioners to share their experiences of the role of faith actors in facilitating or exacerbating social cohesion and xenophobia in the context of forced migration. The speakers included Tara Henriquez (“As Born Among Us” campaign), Esperanda Bigirimana (Faith to Action Network), Rikko Voorberg (A World of Neighbours), Watfa Najdi (American University of Beirut), Emmanuel Wakana (Youth Empowerment and Leadership Initiative – Burundi).
Tara Henriquez, a consultant at Tearfund, shared her experiences evaluating the As Born Among Us campaign, which aims to advocate for and create awareness of the needs of migrants and refugees in Latin America and the Caribbean.
The campaign has run for over three years, catalyzing evangelical churches and faith-based organizations in Latin America and the Caribbean to respond to the region’s ongoing migration crises, inspired by theological teachings. Tara emphasized that xenophobia among faith communities was one of the major drivers behind the campaign’s inception, as well as harsh deterrent policies that were emerging from countries around the region.
“There’s a general lack of awareness of human rights. And for people that are migrating, there’s a need for basic humanitarian assistance as well as integration of those that are migrating. And specifically among faith actors, there’s a need for training them to understand the rights of refugees, their needs and some of the services that they need in that space.”
Tara Henriquez
The campaign was built on four goals: sensitization of the evangelical church to the Biblical mandate to serve and advocate on behalf of migrants;, mobilization of faith-based community action; advocacy on the human rights of migrants; and integration of migrants into receiving communities. To support sensitization of faith actors towards refugees, the campaign drew on Christian teachings and texts – for example, Leviticus 19:33-34, where it is said. “If a stranger dwells with you on your land, you should not mistreat him. The stranger who dwells among you shall be to you as one born among you, and you shall love them as yourself.”
The campaign is now shifting towards being a “network”, with 59 allied entities and 1,015 activity participants. Some of the most successful strategies of the campaign included bringing together a wide range of actors, from policy-makers to local faith actors; using technologies such as WhatsApp, as well as online webinars and workshops to connect participants; the campaign also initiated a seminary course across the region on how to address migration needs using theological teachings.
The campaign led to a diverse, but unified regional faith-based network; better coordination in assistance and action; increased understanding and changed behaviors towards migrants and refugees; and an increased sensitisation, mobilisation, and visibility of Christian communities on the issue of migration and migrant rights. This was evidenced through surveys, as well as case study examples.
“Some of the biggest lessons learned were that when you’re working at the regional level there are different sub-region and country contexts that you have to acknowledge. The effort was born in Colombia and so it had, at the beginning, a very South American focus. But as we moved to Central America and Mexico, that focus had to change and to expand. Some of the differences in evangelical communities in particular by country had to be recognized. And we’re still working with that, because some groups are a little more conservative versus others that are used to being involved in social justice.”
Tara Henriquez
Henriquez highlighted the importance of equal access to resources, noting that not all participants had access to the internet or were able to travel for meetings, as well as the need to make resources available in the multiple languages spoken in the region (not just Spanish). Henriquez also spoke of the resources required to professionalise the network as its scale expanded, including developing policies and procedures to manage coordination, membership, and communication.
Esperanda Bigirimana drew from her experience working with the Phephisa Survivors Network in South Africa, which seeks to provide support to refugees and IDPs who are also survivors of sexual and gender-based violence. The survivors Phephisa works with typically come from conflict-affected countries such as Congo, Burundi, Rwanda, Zimbabwe and Ethiopia.
“Our work is mainly focusing on creating safe spaces for survivors in churches, mostly within Christian communities, but now we call ourselves a faith community, because most of our members are survivors from different faith backgrounds.”
Esperanda Bigirimana
Phephisa engages in advocacy using contextual bible studies with church leaders, to build awareness about sexual abuse, and challenge the stigmas survivors typically face. Phephisa works with faith leaders to consider how they can support survivors, and create safe spaces for them in churches or other religious institutions. Phephisa also educates immigrant and refugee survivors about the law in South Africa, so they can better understand their legal rights, how to advocate for their rights – whether in hospitals, or when approaching the police. Most importantly, they also provided survivors economic empowerment through upskilling, as well as practical advice on how to save money despite limited resources.
When talking about the challenge of xenophobia, Bigirimana highlighted how it manifests for women refugees in particular. For example, self-employed women who work in the street (e.g. selling goods) often reported experiences of harassment. However, Bigirimana shared specific examples of how South African members of the network extended solidarity and support to the refugee members of the Phephisa Survivors Network:
“When there is xenophobia or violence in our community, our members who are South African citizens support us; they stand with us…if one of our members is in hospital and not well-treated, our members who are South African citizens will step in and educate his fellow South Africans. I learnt that as humans, we can live together and support each other.”
Esperanda Bigirimana
Rikko Voorberg shared his experiences as the Director of A World of Neighbours, a faith-based network for refugees supporting social cohesion in Europe. Voorberg challenged the notion of a“European refugee crisis”, pointing out that while there is a refugee crisis, it is not in Europe; and while there is a European crisis, it is not about refugees.
“The crisis for humanity in Europe in 2023 has to do with closed borders, pushbacks, rising xenophobia, antisemitism, Islamophobia, and polarization…Refugees and migrants are not a ‘problem to be solved’. Their situation calls for accompaniment, leading to mutual transformation and reception into a diverse, socially-cohesive, and welcoming society.”
Rikko Voorberg
A World of Neighbours was established in 2016/2017 as a partnership between the Church of Sweden, HIAS, Lutheran World Federation, Islamic Relief Worldwide, and more, in order to provide support to faith practitioners to become more resilient and effective. A World of Neighbours intentionally supports faith actors, such as faith-based NGOs or faith communities, who are already doing the work of accompanying migrants, but who may be under-resourced, burnt out, or isolated, rather than looking for gaps to start new refugee projects. The mission of establishing A World of Neighbors is to empower practitioners through maintaining an interfaith and cross-sectoral peer-to-peer support network of practitioners. A World of Neighbours fosters a community of practice among those working on the front lines of accompaniment of people on the move, as well as social cohesion.
A World of Neighbours is now the largest interfaith practitioner network in Europe, with over 60 network practitioners from 16 countries, and includes affiliated researchers, who share a vision for transforming Europe. Activities include learning and exchange, home groups, and creating opportunities for collaboration and cooperation between different practitioners, faith groups, nationalities, and researchers.
“One of the biggest lessons when it comes to faith is how much trust it takes to really start to understand each other. In times of conflict, interreligious connections are in jeopardy – they really fall apart. Unless they are based in the work you do.”
Rikko Voorberg
Ms Watfa Najdi from the American University of Beirut, spoke of her research into the relationship between refugees and local communities in Lebanon, part of a broader study by the American University of Beirut in collaboration with the Refugee Studies Centre at the University of Oxford titled “Social Cohesion as a Humanitarian Objective.” The project revealed the role of faith actors in enhancing social cohesion, and aimed to critically examine the dominant approach used by humanitarian organizations for social cohesion programming targeting Syrian refugees.
The focus of the study emerged from observations that popular, supposedly “apolitical” conflict reduction initiatives were often grounded in assumptions of secular neutrality. Common projects examined by the study included arts, livelihoods training, sports, peace education curriculum activities, based on interpersonal contact and friendship-building approaches. Yet, as Najdi explained, there has been insufficient attention to how such secular programming may depoliticise the lived experiences of refugees, as well as erase local religious values, knowledge systems, and communal resilience. Najdi highlighted the trade-offs Syrian refugees therefore face regarding culture, identity and dignity when engaging with the humanitarian sphere, particularly given the power differential between refugees and humanitarian actors.
“Despite broadly claiming neutrality towards the religious realm, NGOs and donors seem to uncritically embed secular assumptions that marginalize faith expression and fail to reasonably accommodate religious identity. Refugees described examples of NGOs selectively silencing Muslim voices in projects…while promoting secular beliefs. This pattern of ignoring or invisibilizing components of religious identity and practice was keenly felt by participants as erasing vital principles, relationships, and ways of life.”
Watfa Najdi
Najdi highlighted the dangers of NGOs avoiding faith dimensions, particularly when refugees express reliance on their faith as a coping mechanism during displacement. Thus, while popular secular social cohesion models may address short-term needs, they also extract steeper costs from refugees’ lives – including further loss of agency, voice, and cultural continuity. Moreover, interventions such as arts or sports programmes failed to make use of existing community or religious structures, values and knowledge – such as “ties of kinship” – which could enable more sustainable, meaningful social cohesion.
The study recommends the need for social cohesion projects that are collaboratively designed with refugee and host communities, which draw on refugee experiences and situate local faith traditions as partners, rather than obstacles.
The final speaker, Emmanuel Wakana, shared his experience working with the Youth Empowerment and Leadership Initiative (YELI) Burundi to support social cohesion projects for refugees, IDPs and returnees.
YELI Burundi seeks to address the systematic exclusion of displaced and returnee women from public and decision-making spaces, due to discriminatory social norms, violence, economic depression, and institutional practices which weaken women’s agency. YELI Burundi works to catalyze women-led social cohesion through capacity-building programmes, which aim to increase women’s engagement in local and national leadership. The project specifically reaches out to the most marginalized women, supporting them to meaningfully engage in decision-making processes, in order to ensure that policies respond to their needs. The project also aimed to strengthen institutional and gender equality using innovative ways, for example supporting women to bridge the digital divide by utilizing digital spaces as a tool for women’s leadership.
“Constructively engaging with decision makers and the communities, the work aims to transform particular norms that marginalize women, particularly in rural areas – building knowledge and the attitude of harmful gender norms with households, empowering men to act as agents of change and promoting new approaches for gender equality.”
Emmanuel Wakana
The project seeks to ensure women-led organizations are stronger, and that displaced women have enhanced public participation through strategic advocacy and structured approaches for safe, meaningful, and sustainable participation – including addressing caregiving needs of women. The project also advocates for wider communities and national discourse to support this goal by adopting gender equal norms and tackling social and structural barriers which weaken women’s agency, particularly returnee and IDP women.