A STORY OF RESILIENCE: Immigration, Migration and Trauma of Sub-Sahara African Women in Canada - Softcover

Kambere, Edith Ngene

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1490780173 ISBN 13: 9781490780177

Publisher: Trafford, 2017

Synopsis

In this book, I weave together personal stories of my struggles growing up in an African culture at a time when education for girls was given little consideration, and there were stories of the traumas of surviving a political coup and a violent relocating, with stories of other women who experienced their own pains of relocating.  The book offers knowledge and insight to mental health and other professionals who work closely with these women who are involved in the struggle of integrating into new Canadian communities while carrying the baggage of pre- and postmigration trauma.  Although my experience is not unique among other immigrant women’s stories, it has given me a reason to appreciate each day that God blesses me with life, shelter, freedom from gunshots, and an abundance of resources. I am ever grateful that as immigrants and professional workers read this book, which is an interweaving of the comments of African immigrant women, excerpts from my own personal story, and the insights of others, they will encounter new perspectives about African immigrant women (hereafter AIR women). Specifically, the section of shared stories of pre- and postmigration trauma will shed knowledge on how to begin work with a clientele who come from similar backgrounds. I especially hope that readers will be encouraged to thankfully reflect on their own experiences as people who have the privilege of living in a country that is safe.

About this title

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

A Story of Resilience

Immigration, Migration and Trauma of Sub-Sahara African Women in Canada

By Edith Ngene Kambere

Trafford Publishing

Copyright © 2017 Edith Ngene Kambere
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-4907-8017-7

Contents

FOREWORD, vii, 
PREFACE, xi, 
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS, xiii, 
INTRODUCTION, xv, 
SECTION I METHODOLOGY, 1, 
SECTION II FROM UGANDA TO EXILE IN THE CONGO, 7, 
My life in Uganda, 7, 
Locating gender in an African cultural setting, 7, 
The roots of my passion for education, 10, 
Struggles with School, 17, 
The disillusion and path change toward my dream, 19, 
Journey with my husband and dreams of a life of status, 22, 
Helping women fighting poverty, 27, 
Life of status tested in prison, 31, 
The road to exile, 33, 
In search of a new home in Congo, 40, 
The conditions of living poor, 40, 
The connection with local people, 43, 
The business that resurrected past traumatic memories, 44, 
A friend who never gave up on me, 47, 
Learning new survival strategies, 51, 
Fear after Treatment, 56, 
Connecting with my husband, 61, 
My family in the Congo Capital City - Kinshasa, 67, 
Joy filled with mixed feelings of loneliness, 70, 
Instability in the Capital City Kinshasa, 73, 
The power of social networking, 77, 
Child birth that connected old friendships, 80, 
A refugee woman in labor, 81, 
In the Ngaliema Hospital, 83, 
Out of the hospital, 85, 
SECTION III A NEW HORIZON: FROM AFRICA TO CANADA, 89, 
All began on the night of May 23, 1992, 89, 
Post-migration life experience and past memories, 93, 
Reconnecting with my cultural roots, 96, 
Sharing narratives from other African Immigrant Women, 103, 
Race matters, 103, 
Housing obstructions, 105, 
Emotional turmoil, 107, 
Weather dressing, 107, 
The power of community connections, 108, 
The twisting road to high education, 120, 
Re-traumatization by daily life, 128, 
SECTION IV SERVICE PLANNING AND POLICY IMPLICATIONS, 139, 
Do your best to know us, 139, 
Take seriously the power of social connections, 143, 
Take a holistic approach, 146, 
Construct smooth paths: the mainstream services, 148, 
Help family reunification, 151, 
Use and combat the strain of nostalgia, 153, 
Help individual construct healthy new identities, 159, 
Capitalize on people's gratitude, 164, 
Help folks unlock their hopes, 169, 
Create organizational and professional's competence, 174, 
Involve ethnic communities in services planning, 179, 
SECTION V LAST THOUGHTS, 187, 
CONCLUSION, 201, 

CHAPTER 1

Section I

Methodology

* * *

I have to make this clear that this is not an academic book in a traditional way meaning proposing a thesis with a line of arguments. It is an academic book considering the story narratives and perspective of developing knowledge.

However, mapping the life experiences of immigrant and refugee women presents a series of transitions and each stage presents numerous challenges as well as opportunities. Every moment, these women must make decisions that will forever change their lives. While every step they go through carries uncertainties, each woman is hopeful that life will be better.

This study captures the journey of 13 women of diverse Sub-Saharan African cultural backgrounds, from their home country to this new homeland, Canada. Their joys and pains, hopes and fears, are narrated from their point of view as experiences of overcoming horrific experiences in two or more different ways.

I chose to use narratives as a knowledge gathering tool because it is an interpretive approach in the social sciences which involves storytelling methodology (Basset & Stickley, 2010). The story of the subject or participant becomes an object of study, focusing on how individuals make sense of events and actions in their lives. In this study, our shared voices have connected us together as women who share similar journeys that have made us strong. In our struggles, we have found a common thread of identifying with one another through the stories and voices that we all share, and we see ourselves as victims and strong in the ways that we have survived our ordeals. We want to build on our traumas and pains for the future generations that come after us for them to know that there is hope even amidst disappointments and trials.

To us as survivors of war trauma, life in our home countries as well as in the refugee camps in different countries of exile describes the women's recollection of pain in both home and country of refugee. Some of the women's fondest recollections are of what life back in Africa was like. Particularly they found strength and support from a community that lived collectively rather than an individualistic life. Life during crisis brings back painful memories of war, flight, and danger. Life in Canada brings up stories of both challenges and uncertainty in a new environment including women's thoughts on what Canada has in store for them especially the challenges of lack of understanding of their trauma from the professionals and from the employers and coworkers.

Focus groups and one interview were organized in conjunction with participatory research action on "What causes the Mental Health Problems in African Women?" Interested participants were sent a letter that introduced them to this project. I conducted the interview and focus groups and transcribed the information. Of the thirteen African women interviewed, all respondents identified themselves as having suffered some traumatic experiences as a result of war trauma and displacement.

However, some of them show some resiliency in dealing with experiences of trauma. Three-quarters of the women who participated in this study identified themselves as currently married; one was divorced, or, in a handful of cases, never married. Almost all (60%) of women were parents. Only 3 participants identified themselves as neither married nor parents. I did not ask participants about their sexual orientation but in the course of the interview and focus groups, almost all made it apparent they were, or had been, married and/or involved with opposite-sex partners.

It is important to note that the participants in focus groups for this book originated from 7 different countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, namely: Sudan, Sierra Leon, Rwanda, Burundi, Ethiopia, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. In this project, three of the participants are themselves counselors. One works in mainstream organization counseling battered women, two of these participants work with NGOs that provide services for immigrant women who are victims of spouse abuse, [unfortunately, one of these counselors was murdered in 2013 while in the course of doing what she loved doing for women, before this book got to be published].

Two participant counselors had a university degree; another one had a non-social work degree from her country of origin, and with her social work degree near completion. The third counselor had a community certificate in counseling. The rest of the women had their education outside Canada. One focus group was conducted in Swahili, one of the widely spoken African languages that I speak, which I later translated in English. Two of the focus groups and one interview were conducted in English. All the focus groups and interviews were transcribed. The core questions were:

• What kind of pre-migration traumatic experiences did you have before arriving in Canada and how did this impact your integration process?

• How has the experience (s) of pre-migration if any interfere with your current health, emotional and physical well-being?

• What traumatic symptoms have you experienced as a result of these experiences?

The three counselors that participated in this group have been my acquaintances for the last 16 years and were primarily contacted on the basis of our prior work experiences with African immigrant women from war-torn countries as well as on the basis of their knowledge about the issues that concern this particular group. The women participants were selected according to the duration of the period in the host country and in particularly from African war-troubled countries. I was very cognizant in getting the participants in this group from a variety of Sub-Saharan African, and to get service providers whose experiences of being victims of trauma has helped them to work effectively in helping Sub-Saharan African Immigrant and Refugee women (AIR) that live in the Vancouver metropolitan area.

This Narrative as a Research tool was not aimed at discovering what causes mental health problems among AIR women. But a review of the transcribed information from the focus groups and interview indicate to me that they might provide a rich set of data for documenting such findings, as the women's narratives demonstrate. As I understood the study of Narrative as Research tool, I immediately realized that this approach would help me as the author and the readers to learn from the women's stories and recommendations they make.

With this in mind, I came to realize that with an NRT approach of storytelling positions narrative research largely within the postmodernist paradigm. This approach emphasizes that knowledge is value-laden, and reality is based on multiple perspectives, with truth grounded in everyday life involving social interactions amongst individuals. Research indicates that this approach actually captures social representation processes such as feelings, which I was able to witness through the women's narratives. In this study, I got a sense of how narrative can aid education (Abma, 2000; Cox, 2001), thus how it can act as a source of understanding (Cortazzi, 2001) women's current situations. I came to understand that women's stories told within their cultural contexts to promote certain values and beliefs can contribute to the construction of individual identity.

In taking this approach of storytelling, I needed to be informed on how to listen to the women while trying to help them deal with their own issues of trauma (Ambrosini and Bowman, 2001 and Linde 2001) while reflecting on my own internal turmoil that might still need some healing. Through narratives, told within their cultural contexts this could contribute to the construction of their individual identity or concept of their African community. Storytelling can help in transferring complex tacit knowledge or can also serve as a source of implicit communication. Other aspects include: how narrative can aid education (Abma, 2000; Cox, 2001), how stories contribute to sense-making and how narrative may act as a source of understanding (Cortazzi, 2001) one's internal conflict. While this is the nature of the approach, it is clear that there are also other key attributes of NRT that distinguish it from common problem-solving approaches that we all engage in curing everyday life challenges!

Throughout the women's narrative, they identified four migration stages at which they felt significant potential for trauma experiences that lead to serious psychological distress: 1) pre-migration trauma, such as what they experienced prior to migration to Canada, that were a major factor of leaving their countries of origin; 2) they also described traumatic events experienced during transition to their new country; 3) they highlighted continuing trauma experiences during the process of refugee asylum and re-settlement; and 4) there was mention of mistreatment by professionals and employers in the host country due to either their accent or unknown reasons to these women, inadequate supports, and minority persecution.

The objective of this study was to give the African immigrant and refugee women the opportunity to share their personal life stories of immigrating to Canada, while they inform the service providers on how to better serve them while they integrate into the Canadian society. In this script, I felt the need to target the service providers, mental health professionals, social workers and psychologists because they are the groups of people that AIR Women usually get in close proximity with as soon as they land their feet on their new home, Canada.

The findings in this text report a myriad of complex emotional and physical tasks that must be accomplished by people who leave their homelands. The women's loss of family, community, emotional trauma, and physical environment are themes that echo through both clinical and much research that has been done previously. The loss of familiar social networks is especially hard on families and these AIR women, who often find themselves isolated, are forced to deal on their own with the multiple demands of life in a foreign environment (Masinda and Kambere, 2008; Kambere, 2004; Kleinman, 1995). Unfortunately, this is often a bitter surprise for those women who come with hopes of fresh horizons in a country of new opportunities.

CHAPTER 2

Section II

From Uganda to Exile in the Congo

* * *

This section elaborates on my life conditions as a young girl and a woman in Uganda and the subsequent refugee status in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

My life in Uganda

Locating gender in an African cultural setting

My intention of writing this section is not out of context. I am beginning with my childhood life to inform the readers about the determination that sometimes children have at an early age which can be a motivation factor for them in their adult life. The readers have to understand that when a child is given an opportunity to be loved, encouraged and motivated no matter their weakness, you will be surprised what children grasp in their young life and what they can achieve.

I come from a family and cultural backgrounds that have their own values and beliefs that have contributed to who I am today. Having come from such backgrounds and belief systems, I am ever grateful for the way my character was shaped by challenges and aspirations that I faced as a result. Many of us come from families where we might have faced challenges that were not of our own making. Some of us grew up with aspirations that were motivated by our parents or our own siblings. Others still might have had ambitions and aspirations that would need someone to motivate them for their dreams to become a reality. In other cases, some of us have become the mentors that siblings that we grew up with have emulated.

I grew up in a culture where being a first born can be very rewarding, but at the same time very challenging, because everyone looks up to you in order to reach their own goals. The challenge of growing up as the first born in the family is not an easy task, especially if there are no role models in the community that you would emulate. However, in many aspects, it is very rewarding because it shapes the real you to explore many skills that come with being the first child whom the parents and young siblings could rely on for simple house-hold tasks. There are rewards and challenges that one endures by carrying such a place in many of my African cultures. I grew up at a time when girls were not given much consideration in the area of education. Fortunately for me, my parents had a different perspective about girls' education. They were determined to educate their daughter against all odds.

I had three step-siblings younger than I, and two biological siblings a brother and sister. We were five girls in the family at the time. Having this sizeable number of girls was something that was not perceived well by the community. My father endured all sorts of questioning and mocking from the community members about why he had the audacity to educate his daughters. Some could not understand how a man could have only girls and yet still love them enough to educate them. This was sweet music in my father's ears as he now narrates the story to us grown up daughters. My father saw education as the only investment that he could give his daughters.

Growing up in the late 1960s and 70s, personal success for a girl was secondary Girls were perceived as second-class citizens and of less value because when they get married, all the wealth would go to someone else- the future husband. My parents never looked at this as an issue that would stop them from educating their girls; instead, they were determined to support us if we chose to study As the eldest daughter in the family, I was faced with the challenge of beating these odds of everyone expecting me to be the role model for my siblings. As it was the norm in the community, I was also expected to be my parents' pride and joy, which is true in a sense.

The pressure was mounting, but with determination that my siblings should learn from me and emulate what I did, I tried to work harder in my academic aspirations. I was determined to be a leader, a head and not the tail. My father constantly told us that whoever loved to study, he would support them despite the hardships of the financial constraints to raise school fees for nine children, including the four boys that were in the family. With the encouragement I got from my father to be educated, I chose to be that woman who was willing to study no matter the obstacles.

My father was constantly approached by village men who asked him why he was interested in educating girls; he vehemently told them "it was none of their business, and that his money was specifically for his children regardless of whether they were girls." What a man! I salute you, Dad! Everyone who comes from a culture where girls are mostly undervalued and regarded as second class citizens knows the concept and understands what I am talking about here. Growing up in such cultures, it was a matter of proving to the community that one deserves to be valued, and to be a determined person who was willing to thrive no matter the odds. I was determined to be a "woman of status" no matter the obstacles. The concept of being considered a girl who would be property for the husband that I would marry was remote for me.

Besides, I had no intentions of even getting married, so that was no issue for me. To the readers, this self-prophesy was false because I got to be fiancée to my husband when I was only seventeen! I will explain this later. I grew up with a dislike of being undervalued and considered a second class citizen in the society. I wanted to be respected and recognized as someone that brought value and pride to the community in which I grew up. I also wanted to be perceived as someone whose usefulness was to be involved in the lives of others. I had no preconceived ideas of how this would develop into a passion of working with women who come from a similar culture as mine.

Before these ambitions, I recall at an early age, I had wanted to be a "woman of status"! How could this be in the mind of a little girl who was only ten years at the time? God knows what I was longing for. I remember at the age of eight, I started practicing standing in front of an audience addressing other children, demonstrating to them that I was a teacher. Each time my parents and I visited some relatives, the first thing I did was to assemble all of the children around and start addressing them as a means of being a leader or teacher to them. As time went by, my younger brother, my sister and I grew up knowing that the only way we could make our parents proud and happy was to really go an extra mile to be successful in life. I came from school after walking about ten miles back and forth from school. I set my sights on being an achiever, studying and making it to university. I needed to focus on achieving higher and get my objectives of being a "woman of status" in order to win the confidence of my family and the village as a whole. Indeed, I made it, after experiencing major obstacles along the way.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from A Story of Resilience by Edith Ngene Kambere. Copyright © 2017 Edith Ngene Kambere. Excerpted by permission of Trafford Publishing.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Edition details

• Publisher: Trafford
• Publication date: 2017
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1490780173
• ISBN 13: 9781490780177
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 226