RefugePoint, Author at RefugePoint

Rosine and France

RefugePoint | September 30, 2019

“I always wanted to study, but I didn’t have the means. As a single mother of three with no husband, my priorities took a back seat. I was most concerned with putting food on the table. When I expressed my hopes and needs to my case manager, she told me that there might be a way for RefugePoint to assist me. That gave me hope. After a long time, I finally had some hope.

I’ve always had a passion for fashion and design, and when I was asked what I would like to study, tailoring was the first thing that came to mind. Mr. Kimani (Education Officer) asked me to identify someone in my neighborhood with a good tailoring business who might be willing to train me. I was already friends with France, and when I asked her, she was more than willing to take me on as her student,” Rosine told us.

Rosine is part of RefugePoint’s Apprenticeship and Vocational Skills Program. Her tutor, France, received a small business grant from RefugePoint, which allowed her to establish a tailoring business with three sewing machines.

Rosine has already completed clothing repairs for a few customers and is gaining more and more confidence in her skills. She hopes that after completing her training, she can open her own business.

In addition to training Rosine, France also trains other refugees referred to her by different agencies. “I take pride in running my own business and being able to support and train others. I know this work is good, and when you do it, you always have enough to cover rent and food. As a tailor, you can manage to take care of yourself, and that is my hope for everyone I train.”

“May RefugePoint empower more people so that those people can empower others,” France told us.

“I always wanted to study, but I didn’t have the means. As a single mother of three with no husband, my priorities took a back seat. I was most concerned with putting food on the table. When I expressed my hopes and needs to my case manager, she told me that there might be a way for RefugePoint to assist me. That gave me hope. After a long time, I finally had some hope.

I’ve always had a passion for fashion and design, and when I was asked what I would like to study, tailoring was the first thing that came to mind. Mr. Kimani (Education Officer) asked me to identify someone in my neighborhood with a good tailoring business who might be willing to train me. I was already friends with France, and when I asked her, she was more than willing to take me on as her student,” Rosine told us.

Rosine is part of RefugePoint’s Apprenticeship and Vocational Skills Program. Her tutor, France, received a small business grant from RefugePoint, which allowed her to establish a tailoring business with three sewing machines.

Rosine has already completed clothing repairs for a few customers and is gaining more and more confidence in her skills. She hopes that after completing her training, she can open her own business.

In addition to training Rosine, France also trains other refugees referred to her by different agencies. “I take pride in running my own business and being able to support and train others. I know this work is good, and when you do it, you always have enough to cover rent and food. As a tailor, you can manage to take care of yourself, and that is my hope for everyone I train.”

“May RefugePoint empower more people so that those people can empower others,” France told us.

The Interdependencies of Self-Reliance: RefugePoint’s Runway Approach

RefugePoint | September 26, 2019

By: Amy Slaughter (Chief Strategy Officer)

Would you be able to work if your kids weren’t in school? Or if you didn’t have stable housing? What if you had a serious, untreated health condition or lacked food security? The factors that allow us to thrive and support ourselves are all interconnected. So too are they for refugees, and yet refugee assistance programs are often siloed by sector: “go here for health care, there for counseling, another place for housing or food, and a fourth place to see if you can enroll your kids in school.” Good luck, without transportation or speaking the local language. Good luck, with little money and few social contacts. And good luck even getting through the entry gate when you’re one of thousands of refugees in need of assistance.

Siloed programming starts with siloed funding, which is typically how it comes from governments and multilateral donors who issue separate contracts to “implementing partners” to provide a particular service: food, education or health care, legal protection or water and sanitation. Refugees in urban areas are left to connect the dots – to try to assemble the complement of services that they need, often at great expense in terms of time and money, and often with little luck. Interactions between aid workers and refugees abroad are typically “one-off,” with no coordination of care or “case management.” It is little wonder that refugees remain dependent on aid when no attention is given to eliminating their barriers to self-reliance in a planful, coherent way.

RefugePoint sought to change that in Nairobi for its own clients and to test approaches that might improve refugee service provision broadly. Borrowing lessons from the U.S. program for resettling refugees and helping them get back on their feet, RefugePoint offers a one-stop-shop of coordinated services to address housing, food, healthcare, psychosocial counseling, education, livelihoods, and small business capital needs. Case managers accompany families throughout their journey, making the needed internal and external referrals. Clients help create their own case plans and goals, drawing on their strengths and assets as well as identifying areas for which support is needed.

Using this approach, RefugePoint has been able to ‘graduate’ nearly 3,000 refugees off of its assistance, with sufficient income to support their families. This despite the fact that most clients were initially considered highly ‘vulnerable’ or at risk. While the approach is still being refined and tested, early results point to the possibility that a coordinated set of stabilizing services – that explicitly eliminate barriers to self-reliance – can result in self-reliance for refugees desiring it.

These are the sorts of services that resettled refugees receive when it’s assumed they are remaining permanently in their new country. Treating refugees in their “temporary” host countries as if they are being resettled makes sense since history tells us many will be there indefinitely. And if not, if they get a durable solution (repatriation, permanent local integration, or resettlement), so much the better. They’ll be better prepared for any eventuality, will have preserved their strengths and assets in the meantime, and will have added value to the socio-economic life of their host communities.

To find out more about RefugePoint’s approach in Nairobi, read this field report published in the Journal of Refugee Studies in August. Creating the ‘self-reliance runway’ approach (i.e. helping highly vulnerable refugees reach a point where they can engage in economic pursuits) would not have been possible without private donors and foundations that were willing to take a chance on innovation and buck the norm of siloed, sector-based responses. Let’s hope that their investment leads the way for the large bilateral and multilateral donors to expand successful program approaches, particularly as the field looks for ways to operationalize Goal 2 of the Global Compact on Refugees: “expanding self-reliance.”

Quotes from our clients about self-reliance:

“When you’re on assistance, your well-being is unstable.

You never know when you will be cut off.”

“Now that I have a business, I feel more integrated into the community.
I can even help my neighbors when they need help.”

“It is stressful being on assistance. It would be better to be self-sufficient.”

By: Amy Slaughter (Chief Strategy Officer)

Would you be able to work if your kids weren’t in school? Or if you didn’t have stable housing? What if you had a serious, untreated health condition or lacked food security? The factors that allow us to thrive and support ourselves are all interconnected. So too are they for refugees, and yet refugee assistance programs are often siloed by sector: “go here for health care, there for counseling, another place for housing or food, and a fourth place to see if you can enroll your kids in school.” Good luck, without transportation or speaking the local language. Good luck, with little money and few social contacts. And good luck even getting through the entry gate when you’re one of thousands of refugees in need of assistance.

Siloed programming starts with siloed funding, which is typically how it comes from governments and multilateral donors who issue separate contracts to “implementing partners” to provide a particular service: food, education or health care, legal protection or water and sanitation. Refugees in urban areas are left to connect the dots – to try to assemble the complement of services that they need, often at great expense in terms of time and money, and often with little luck. Interactions between aid workers and refugees abroad are typically “one-off,” with no coordination of care or “case management.” It is little wonder that refugees remain dependent on aid when no attention is given to eliminating their barriers to self-reliance in a planful, coherent way.

RefugePoint sought to change that in Nairobi for its own clients and to test approaches that might improve refugee service provision broadly. Borrowing lessons from the U.S. program for resettling refugees and helping them get back on their feet, RefugePoint offers a one-stop-shop of coordinated services to address housing, food, healthcare, psychosocial counseling, education, livelihoods, and small business capital needs. Case managers accompany families throughout their journey, making the needed internal and external referrals. Clients help create their own case plans and goals, drawing on their strengths and assets as well as identifying areas for which support is needed.

Using this approach, RefugePoint has been able to ‘graduate’ nearly 3,000 refugees off of its assistance, with sufficient income to support their families. This despite the fact that most clients were initially considered highly ‘vulnerable’ or at risk. While the approach is still being refined and tested, early results point to the possibility that a coordinated set of stabilizing services – that explicitly eliminate barriers to self-reliance – can result in self-reliance for refugees desiring it.

These are the sorts of services that resettled refugees receive when it’s assumed they are remaining permanently in their new country. Treating refugees in their “temporary” host countries as if they are being resettled makes sense since history tells us many will be there indefinitely. And if not, if they get a durable solution (repatriation, permanent local integration, or resettlement), so much the better. They’ll be better prepared for any eventuality, will have preserved their strengths and assets in the meantime, and will have added value to the socio-economic life of their host communities.

To find out more about RefugePoint’s approach in Nairobi, read this field report published in the Journal of Refugee Studies in August. Creating the ‘self-reliance runway’ approach (i.e. helping highly vulnerable refugees reach a point where they can engage in economic pursuits) would not have been possible without private donors and foundations that were willing to take a chance on innovation and buck the norm of siloed, sector-based responses. Let’s hope that their investment leads the way for the large bilateral and multilateral donors to expand successful program approaches, particularly as the field looks for ways to operationalize Goal 2 of the Global Compact on Refugees: “expanding self-reliance.”

Quotes from our clients about self-reliance:

“When you’re on assistance, your well-being is unstable.

You never know when you will be cut off.”

“Now that I have a business, I feel more integrated into the community.
I can even help my neighbors when they need help.”

“It is stressful being on assistance. It would be better to be self-sufficient.”

Daniel

RefugePoint | September 5, 2019

“Ever since I was young, I loved education. When I met RefugePoint, they helped me to enroll in my final year of primary school. They hadn’t yet started supporting students to attend high school,” Daniel, an unaccompanied minor from the Democratic Republic of Congo, told us. After Daniel completed primary school, Kimani, RefugePoint’s Education Officer, suggested that he enroll in vocational training to improve his piano skills. Daniel agreed. “I wanted to grab any opportunity that I could to study,” he told us. “After four months of training, I started getting small, paid gigs.”

The following year, when RefugePoint began supporting secondary education, Kimani reached out to Daniel, who was 16 years old at the time, to see if he’d be interested in enrolling. Kimani was surprised when Daniel told him that he was already attending high school. Daniel had saved his earnings from his music gigs to cover his tuition, and had enrolled himself in school!

“I used the money I was making from playing the piano and selling fruits after school to pay for my school fees, but it was difficult. Since I was using all of my spare time working, I couldn’t focus well in school,” Daniel told us. RefugePoint helped to enroll Daniel in a government school and began covering his school fees.

“It wasn’t easy pursuing vocational training and trying to do business and playing music all at the same time. Music loves to practice, and I practice a lot, but now I spend a lot of time studying. Right now, education is my priority. During my holidays I’ve been studying. I’ve been learning new words and reading. My favorite subjects are languages, geography, and history. Some subjects that we study here aren’t studied in my home county, so that is always a challenge. I used to study in French, and here we study in English. I fail in some subjects, but I always learn from my failures,” Daniel shared with us.

RefugePoint helps to enroll children in early childhood education, primary school, secondary school, and special education courses. We also assist adults to access apprenticeship and vocational skills training. In addition to covering tuition, uniforms, and learning materials, RefugePoint also provides stipends for children in boarding schools, and life skills training camps when school is on break.

“When I met RefugePoint, I was wondering how I would start and what I would do, but my dream came alive. I no longer study part-time and worry about my school fees. Now, I can concentrate on my studies. In the future, I want to study telecommunications and things relating to technology. My vision is to study, no matter what. I can see a bright future for myself irrespective of my circumstances,” Daniel shared with us.

“Ever since I was young, I loved education. When I met RefugePoint, they helped me to enroll in my final year of primary school. They hadn’t yet started supporting students to attend high school,” Daniel, an unaccompanied minor from the Democratic Republic of Congo, told us. After Daniel completed primary school, Kimani, RefugePoint’s Education Officer, suggested that he enroll in vocational training to improve his piano skills. Daniel agreed. “I wanted to grab any opportunity that I could to study,” he told us. “After four months of training, I started getting small, paid gigs.”

The following year, when RefugePoint began supporting secondary education, Kimani reached out to Daniel, who was 16 years old at the time, to see if he’d be interested in enrolling. Kimani was surprised when Daniel told him that he was already attending high school. Daniel had saved his earnings from his music gigs to cover his tuition, and had enrolled himself in school!

“I used the money I was making from playing the piano and selling fruits after school to pay for my school fees, but it was difficult. Since I was using all of my spare time working, I couldn’t focus well in school,” Daniel told us. RefugePoint helped to enroll Daniel in a government school and began covering his school fees.

“It wasn’t easy pursuing vocational training and trying to do business and playing music all at the same time. Music loves to practice, and I practice a lot, but now I spend a lot of time studying. Right now, education is my priority. During my holidays I’ve been studying. I’ve been learning new words and reading. My favorite subjects are languages, geography, and history. Some subjects that we study here aren’t studied in my home county, so that is always a challenge. I used to study in French, and here we study in English. I fail in some subjects, but I always learn from my failures,” Daniel shared with us.

RefugePoint helps to enroll children in early childhood education, primary school, secondary school, and special education courses. We also assist adults to access apprenticeship and vocational skills training. In addition to covering tuition, uniforms, and learning materials, RefugePoint also provides stipends for children in boarding schools, and life skills training camps when school is on break.

“When I met RefugePoint, I was wondering how I would start and what I would do, but my dream came alive. I no longer study part-time and worry about my school fees. Now, I can concentrate on my studies. In the future, I want to study telecommunications and things relating to technology. My vision is to study, no matter what. I can see a bright future for myself irrespective of my circumstances,” Daniel shared with us.

Education as a Tool for Protection and Self-Reliance

RefugePoint | September 5, 2019

Education as a Tool for Protection and Self-Reliance

For refugee children, going to school isn’t only about advancing their education, but also serves as an essential protection tool. At school, refugee children are able to rebuild critical support systems (teachers, mentors, coaches) that they may have lost. School also allows children to integrate into their new communities by learning new languages and develop new friendships.

For refugee parents, access to education, for their children, as well as for themselves, are both crucial. When children attend school, parents have more flexibility to pursue income-generating activities, which helps lead to self-reliance. For refugee adults, apprenticeship and vocational skills training allows them to pursue their passions and develop their skills, helping them to become more financially stable.

How RefugePoint Provides Educational Support

The costs of attending school are often out of reach for refugee families, since accessing food and shelter are the top priorities. In response to some of these challenges, RefugePoint provides educational support, in the form of uniforms, school fees, and academic materials, to at-risk refugee children to enhance access and retention in school. RefugePoint supports students in early childhood education, primary school, secondary school, special education, and apprenticeship and vocational skills programs.

Our social work, counseling, and child protection teams, as well as community volunteer workers, help to identify and refer children in need of education assistance. Once enrolled in school, monitoring becomes an integral part of the education process. To ensure that services are being delivered in a quality manner, RefugePoint’s Education Officer makes school visits to check-in on students, serves as a mentor to students, participates in case reviews for supported children, and gathers feedback from students.

Partnerships and Life Skills Trainings

Thanks to strong partnerships, our Education program has been able to grow over the years – initially from supporting only primary school access, to launching access to secondary school, early childhood education, and apprenticeship and vocational skills training.

We network with Kenya’s Ministry of Education to enroll refugee children into Kenyan schools, including those transitioning from Kenyan primary school system into secondary school.

Initially, RefugePoint hosted an annual day-long life skills training camp for students during school holidays in December. Through the support of numerous partners, we now hold a yearly collaborative life skills training camp that lasts a full week and is attended by more than 300 students. The life skills training is a forum where children and young adults come together to have fun, socialize, and develop new ways of thinking and problem-solving. The training is always conducted in the communities where participants live and covers topics such as: self-awareness, self-esteem, coping with emotions, coping with stress, effective communication, conflict resolution, negotiation, friendship formation, assertiveness, and peer pressure resistance.

Students who have completed secondary school and who are now enrolled in university are invited to attend to share their own experiences and encourage younger students. The camps also provide a forum for peer-to-peer learning, where students share challenges and barriers that they face and brainstorm solutions together.

Related Content

Read Daniel’s Education Story

RefugePoint’s Education Officer, Kimani Gichia, Describes RefugePoint’s Education Program

Cover: Daniel, RefugePoint client (left), sitting with Kimani, RefugePoint’s Education Officer.

Education as a Tool for Protection and Self-Reliance

For refugee children, going to school isn’t only about advancing their education, but also serves as an essential protection tool. At school, refugee children are able to rebuild critical support systems (teachers, mentors, coaches) that they may have lost. School also allows children to integrate into their new communities by learning new languages and develop new friendships.

For refugee parents, access to education, for their children, as well as for themselves, are both crucial. When children attend school, parents have more flexibility to pursue income-generating activities, which helps lead to self-reliance. For refugee adults, apprenticeship and vocational skills training allows them to pursue their passions and develop their skills, helping them to become more financially stable.

How RefugePoint Provides Educational Support

The costs of attending school are often out of reach for refugee families, since accessing food and shelter are the top priorities. In response to some of these challenges, RefugePoint provides educational support, in the form of uniforms, school fees, and academic materials, to at-risk refugee children to enhance access and retention in school. RefugePoint supports students in early childhood education, primary school, secondary school, special education, and apprenticeship and vocational skills programs.

Our social work, counseling, and child protection teams, as well as community volunteer workers, help to identify and refer children in need of education assistance. Once enrolled in school, monitoring becomes an integral part of the education process. To ensure that services are being delivered in a quality manner, RefugePoint’s Education Officer makes school visits to check-in on students, serves as a mentor to students, participates in case reviews for supported children, and gathers feedback from students.

Partnerships and Life Skills Trainings

Thanks to strong partnerships, our Education program has been able to grow over the years – initially from supporting only primary school access, to launching access to secondary school, early childhood education, and apprenticeship and vocational skills training.

We network with Kenya’s Ministry of Education to enroll refugee children into Kenyan schools, including those transitioning from Kenyan primary school system into secondary school.

Initially, RefugePoint hosted an annual day-long life skills training camp for students during school holidays in December. Through the support of numerous partners, we now hold a yearly collaborative life skills training camp that lasts a full week and is attended by more than 300 students. The life skills training is a forum where children and young adults come together to have fun, socialize, and develop new ways of thinking and problem-solving. The training is always conducted in the communities where participants live and covers topics such as: self-awareness, self-esteem, coping with emotions, coping with stress, effective communication, conflict resolution, negotiation, friendship formation, assertiveness, and peer pressure resistance.

Students who have completed secondary school and who are now enrolled in university are invited to attend to share their own experiences and encourage younger students. The camps also provide a forum for peer-to-peer learning, where students share challenges and barriers that they face and brainstorm solutions together.

Related Content

Read Daniel’s Education Story

RefugePoint’s Education Officer, Kimani Gichia, Describes RefugePoint’s Education Program

Cover: Daniel, RefugePoint client (left), sitting with Kimani, RefugePoint’s Education Officer.

The Crucial Role that RefugePoint Social Workers Play in the Lives of Our Clients

RefugePoint | August 13, 2019

Take a moment to imagine the life that you want to create for yourself. At its core, it’s probably a life of emotional and mental wellness and financial stability. A life in which you are able to take care of yourself and your family. Now, imagine that there is someone by your side to help you create a plan to achieve those goals with the resources that are available to you, and to guide you through the process.

That is the crucial role that RefugePoint social workers play in the lives of our clients. Each client household served by RefugePoint is assigned a social worker to act as its case manager. Through a collaborative effort, clients have the opportunity to describe how they want to change their circumstances and how they can use their skills and resources to get there. The RefugePoint case manager then commits to supporting the client throughout the process, reviewing and adjusting the case plan with the client on a regular basis. This process continues until all of the identified goals are met, or the client is no longer willing to engage in the process. Each RefugePoint case manager handles 50 households at any given time.

RefugePoint social work team operates based on the principle that the best way to assist refugees is to help them feel empowered to support themselves and their families. RefugePoint social workers guide clients through three stages of case management: stabilization, empowerment, and graduation:

Entry

Prior to the involvement of the social work team, RefugePoint’s Outreach team identifies and assesses new clients using a tool called the Self Reliance Measurement Tool (SMRT). The SRMT is used to collect basic indicators of family well-being/poverty, security, and need. It is a comprehensive look at a family’s well being and uses a 1-4 scale to rank well being (1 being very bad, 4 being excellent). Safety and security are prioritized over financial well-being. A home visit is made, and scores are given in the areas of shelter, food security, non-food items (household physical needs such as bedding, cooking implements), livelihoods, protection, health, mental health, and child protection. An aggregate average of these scores is then calculated and used to help staff prioritize cases and hone in on particular needs. Clients are considered self-sufficient if they score over 3.5. Those clients scoring 2.7 or below are considered at-risk and are assigned to the social work team to begin stabilization.

Stabilization

Once clients have been assessed and entered into the Urban Refugee Protection Program (URPP), a RefugePoint social worker is assigned as their case manager. The case manager visits the clients, collects bio-data, and helps to develop the case plan. The case manager uses the SRMT score as a basis to work the client, by identifying indicators with the lowest scores and working with the client to find solutions. For example, if a client scored a 1 out of 4 on shelter, the case manager would inquire about housing issues, and seek solutions alongside the client.

At this point, the case manager may refer the client for stabilization services like medical support, counseling, basic non-food items like bedding and cookware, and:

Food assistance: RefugePoint’s food distribution system supports the family as the most effective structure. Only in exceptional circumstances, and for short periods, does the focus of food assistance move from the family level to individuals within the family.

Rent assistance: RefugePoint recognizes the crucial need for shelter as part of its holistic model of supporting refugee individuals and families to maintain health, privacy, and dignity. In RefugePoint’s model, rent assistance provided is for a short time while the clients are referred to livelihoods or other relevant services to work towards self-reliance.

Education assistance: RefugePoint recognizes that education is a means by which refugee children can uplift themselves and participate in the development of their communities. Education serves as a protection and integration tool for refugee children in their country of asylum. Refugee children are often unable to attend school, as the limited resources of the family must be directed towards food and shelter as opposed to education. RefugePoint provides uniforms, school fees, and academic materials to vulnerable refugee children to enhance access and retention in school.

The case manager may also make external referrals to link clients for services beyond RefugePoint’s scope, such as legal support. To ensure progress toward self-sufficiency, case managers follow-up with clients on either a weekly or monthly basis (depending on the long and short-term goals of each household).

Empowerment

Case managers may refer clients for support groups or livelihoods support (business training and small business grants to launch a business) to promote self-sufficiency.

Graduation

At any given time, the URPP has a core caseload of 1,200 clients. Our goal is to assist clients towards self-reliance and graduate clients from services within two years, so that new clients may be helped. Even after graduation, clients may continue to receive services like counseling, medical assistance, and resettlement assistance. Graduation can occur in four different ways:

If a household receives an SRM score of greater than 3.5, indicating that the family or individual is self-reliant.
Client(s) voluntarily exiting the program.
The resettlement of the client(s).
When a case has received all of the required support services to achieve their goal, but the client(s) remains un-cooperative.

Robert

RefugePoint | August 7, 2019

“As a father, when you can’t provide for your family and your children go to beg on the street, it’s a tough and painful place to be as a parent. The thing that gets to you the most is the worry. You worry constantly, and you search for them on the street, hoping that you find them. I was always hoping that no harm would come to them, and often wondered if I would ever find them. The most important thing that RefugePoint did for my family and I was providing us with food assistance. The next major thing was providing schooling for my children. Now my kids don’t have to beg on the streets for food like they used to. They are in school now, so they are in a safe environment, and their minds are engaged positively.”

When we went to visit Robert at his home, we found him busy preparing breakfast for his family. “Preparing meals for my family is my responsibility too. When I come home and find my wife busy in the house or taking care of the children, I help her whenever I can. We have always worked as a team. Now that we have food to eat, we must prepare at least three meals a day for the family. If we use it well, the food we get from RefugePoint can last us the whole month.”

Robert, a refugee from Congo, arrived in Nairobi in November 2017 with his wife and eight children. Upon arriving in Nairobi, the family lived on the street and survived by begging for food and money. Eventually, the family moved into a tiny single room in an area of Nairobi known as Kangemi. The room served as a cooking area, living room, and sleeping area. At the time that the family began to receive assistance from RefugePoint, they were very close to being evicted, and they still relied on begging to survive. They could barely afford a single meal a day.

At RefugePoint, we assign a social worker to serve as the case manager for each household actively receiving services from RefugePoint. The role of the case manager is a critical component of the support that RefugePoint clients receive and the case managers guide the direction of all services that our clients receive. RefugePoint case managers serve the critical role of building relationships with the family members in each household, understanding their needs, providing information about services, and problem-solving. Each case manager guides the households that they serve towards self-reliance, initially assisted step-by-step with RefugePoint’s core services. Core services include food assistance, rent assistance, counseling, non-food items like mattresses and sheets, and education assistance. RefugePoint social workers treat clients with respect and dignity, allowing for self-determination and offering hope.

“My caseworker Carol walked closely with me. I cannot find the words to thank her. She helped me to think of how I can assist myself with the skills I have, and with the resources I have available. This helped me to improve our family’s living conditions. Carol referred me for counseling, and that really helped me to change my perceptions about my life and my situation,” Robert explained to us.

“There was a time when we had no chair to offer our guests, but now we have a couch for guests to sit on. We used to all live in one small room, but with my daughters getting into their teens, it was becoming a complicated situation for all of us to share that one tiny space. Now we have two rooms, and they can sleep in their own room. Man, we were in a challenging place. We have come a long way as a family from where we were to where we are now.”

In the case of Robert and his family, social work interventions were particularly crucial in restoring household stability and a sense of dignity for the family members.

Having both the client and the social worker spell out the activities each will undertake reinforces the mutual commitment by both the social worker and the client. It also allows for accountability from both sides. In the case of Robert’s household, he and his family have shown high levels of commitment. “I know that I am very skilled, and with the right assistance and opportunities, I can fend for my family. With the burden of covering rent and food lifted, I was able to save enough money from my casual jobs to buy two shaving machines. I am now able to shave clients, which helps me to support my family.”