Social resilience among refugee and asylum seekers to prevent homelessness:

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1 Social resilience among refugee and asylum seekers to prevent homelessness: A reflective overview on the Tirisano Centre Vulnerable People and Social Integration Project Kulubrehan A. Teweldemedhin Leon Roets Department of Sociology, UNISA

2 Introduction South Africa is amongst highest refugees and asylum seekers hosting countries Estimated about million migrants (including refugees and asylum seekers from different African countries) live in South Africa (University of the Witwatersrand 2010). Majority of the refugees and asylum seekers (RAS) come from Africa such DRC, Burundi, Rwanda, Somalia, Zimbabwe, Uganda, Ethiopia, Eritrea and Kenya and from Asia such as Pakistan, India, Bangladesh and Myanmar. There is no immediate social support system for the RAS in South Africa. The overall purpose of the projects were to: enhance access to health and social services in the City of Tshwane Promote human rights and social integration. The paper is intending to provide an overview on all the annual reports of the last 5, focusing on identifying: key areas of social resilience among refugees and asylum seekers in dealing with social integration issues including homelessness. It also present about the challenges and social resilience of the refugees in South Africa.

3 Definition of terms and supporting legal instruments in south Africa Resilience is a person s ability and flexibility to recover quickly from difficulties, changes, adversities, discouragements, unfortunate circumstances like xenophobia Social resilience is the ability of human communities to withstand and recover from stresses, such as environmental changes or social, economic or political upheavals. The Constitution of South Africa Act (No.108 of 1996) and other domestic laws state: Everyone has the right to have access to: (a) health care services, including reproductive health care; (b) sufficient food and water; and (c) social security, including, if they are unable to support themselves and their dependents, appropriate social assistance. The Section 27 (b) of the South African Refugee Act (130 of 1998) also seeks to give effect to the rights in Section 27(1) (a) of the South African Constitution, stating that "a refugee...enjoys full legal protection, which includes the rights set out in Chapter 2 of the Constitution such as equal protection, dignity, right to life, freedom of movement and residence, occupation, housing, health care, social security.... The term refugee is used to define a person who has been forced to leave and live outside their country of nationality due to fear, threat, violence or persecution and war (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees [UNHCR], 2011).

4 Methodology The research uses reflective research method: review of all the annual reports in the past five years Personal observation and experiences Review of the Draft Homelessness Policy for the City of Tshwane

5 Reflection on the challenges of refugees and asylum seekers toward homelessness and related issues Refugees and asylum seekers experience several challenges in their home country by the government, ethnic group or any perpetuator, when travelling to their destination and when arrived in South Africa. Some of these challenges in South Africa are: Getting documentation/asylum seeker permit (takes months). Lack of access to accommodation and social service where they can sleep and get basic needs such as food, sanitation. Accessing health facilities due to lack of permit and finance. One of the major questions that we were asked by the Refugees and asylum seekers during the projects implementation were assistance in getting documentation, food, place to sleep as they stay for three and four days to renew their permit. Denial to rent a flat/house due to the lack of proper documentation and lack of accepting the refugee status and asylum seeker documents. Threat of eviction from their business premises. Denial to open bank account with refugee and asylum seeker permit

6 The Social resilience mechanism of refugees and asylum seekers Although the research is at its early stage in the process of its making, the followings are some of the resilience mechanism that the refugees and asylum seekers have been using in South Africa: Past hardship life experience and personal excellences; Inform social network ; Kinship and past relationship in country of origin; Church based support.

7 Past hardship life experience and personal excellences Most of the refugees and asylum seekers come from areas which are highly affected by poverty, war and ethnic conflicts. Most of refugees and asylum seekers in South Africa have fairly good education along problematic life experiences. For them, failure in life in South Africa means death and this attitude assist them to be resilient, success focused. Being optimist, flexible and persistent toward life. To have inner strength to deal with challenges in life. Most of refugees and asylum seekers also come to South Africa with a positive attitude and hope for a good future life, to make difference in their life and this helped them to cope in the context of homelessness Leaving family members at home in bad condition that needs their help also force them to be resilient to the hardships.

8 Informal support networks from relatives, friends and community Most of the refugees and asylum seekers have a link with family member or friends or people from their community. When a person arrives in South Africa, he often gets a support from his friend or relative or people from his country of origin. The support might be in the form of borrowing money, allowing him to stay in the house with them until he/she gets some kinds of job. Employing the person in the shop or whatever available jobs. Refugees and asylum seekers also utilise their own ethnic community/peer to help them to cope and adjust to their new way of life in South Africa. When they face desperate situation during their stay in South Africa like the xenophobic attach, shop robbery, they approaches their friends, family members or communities for assistance and or somebody who knows about the situation also alerts the community. And then they organize support either in finance or in kind like accommodating him or her for certain period until the person come out from his situation. These kinds of support boost the resilience of the person during the challenges

9 Churches base support Most of the refugees and asylum seekers affiliate to certain religious institution from their own country. The churches and mosques provide him/her material support for their fellow members or the person who are in need, Raise some money from members or talk to members of churches who have better income to assist to the members of the churches in disparate situation, pay rents and give some cash until the person come out of his situation. This kind of caring leadership of the church often play a great role in reducing or preventing homelessness among the refugees and asylum seekers. The churches also help to build trust among the members and to support financially in the form of borrowing, credit giving etc.

10 Review of the Homelessness Policy for City of Tshwane The research also tried to review the draft policy for homeless in the City of Tshwane to assess its inclusion of the refugees and asylum seekers. The policy seems excluding the refugees and asylum seekers against its principle of holism and integration of the homelessness people. The policy states that the City of Tshwane shelters will not accommodate foreigners/ illegal immigrants. Here, the policy seems contradicting its own objective To fight poverty, build clean, healthy, safe and sustainable communities". The policy also stated that refugees and asylum seekers will be referred to Foreign Affair/Home Affairs. Here, it is not clear if this means that the Departments of Home Affair and Foreign Affairs will have their own separate services for homeless refugees and asylum seekers or to deport them to the country where they escaped from persecution or just leave them in the street and contradict the principle of building clean city. United nation High Commissioners for Refugees and asylum seekers (UNHCR) is one of the organizations that have the mandate for refugees and asylum seekers. However, from preliminary review of the draft policy, there is no clear evidence whether UNHCR was invited or consulted to the process of developing the policy.

11 In conclusion The world is still enough to all of us. Specially, Africa is more than enough to all of us. Just we need to have in our heart a little spirit of ubuntu and fight the evil factors that put us in the situation of homelessness.

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