ABSTRACT
Experiences from the developing countries of the so-called Third World are invaluable to the development of good community work practice in any context. This chapter provides a case study of a project implemented in Yemen with Somali refugees by the Swedish organisation Rädda Barnen (Save the Children). The chapter describes the processes of community-based forms of intervention within a refugee community organising to resolve its own problems and difficulties. The study illustrates that human potential and agency are the most important resources to development, which becomes particularly obvious in a country where few other resources are available. The starting point of this approach is that local communities can effectively organise to identify, direct and implement programmes that enhance their social and economic well-being if stimulated and supported appropriately to do so (Burkey 1993). Respect for persons, for their ability to be creative and to be motivated even in circumstances of crisis, such as the experience of being refugees, is the core of collective action strategies. This particular study also forcefully illustrates the major contribution of women in the development process (Van den Hombergh 1993) and the lesson to Western social work thinking ‘we must do it our own way’. People’s cultures have within them their own potential and their own solutions which should guide and direct the social work intervention.
