Weddings and parties: Cultural healing in one community of Somali women
Pauline Guerin
School of Psychology, University of South Australia, Adelaide SA
Fatuma Hussein Elmi
Waikato Somali Friendship Society, Hamilton, New Zealand
Bernard Guerin
School of Psychology, University of South Australia, Adelaide SA
PP: 105 - 112
Abstract
Refugees who are resettled in western countries, particularly Muslim, female, and African refugees, are at a high risk for 'mental disorders,' especially when they are then marginalised racially, socially, religiously and economically. In a small city with no specialist services for refugee mental health, a group of Somali refugee women found their own ways to cope with the enormous challenges facing them. In this paper, we describe some of these ways by drawing on many years of ethnographic and participant observation, reflecting specifically on the role of weddings and parties and the embracing of cultural dance, music, and dress on well-being.
We aim to show how community-initiated activities can be therapeutic as social approaches to mental health promotion and early intervention. We also discuss how 'westerners' and mental health and other professionals can contribute to facilitating this process.
Keywords
multicultural mental health, refugees, women, cultural activities, mental health promotion, early intervention
Article Text
There is a large and growing Somali community in Hamilton, New Zealand. Somali started arriving around 1992, mainly as refugees through the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and New Zealand Immigration Service (NZIS) refugee quota programme or through family reunion programmes. According to the 2001 Census, there were nearly 500 Somali living in Hamilton, a small city in the north island of New Zealand with a population of 115,000 (Statistics New Zealand, 2002a,b,c). The median age of Somalis in Hamilton is 16 years, compared with that for Europeans in New Zealand of 37 years, illustrating the youthfulness of the Somali population (Guerin & Diiriye, 2004; Guerin, Guerin & Elmi, 2006). There are slightly more Somali women than men, especially in the older age groups. Although the ethnic diversity of Hamilton is growing and a variety of services is available to refugees and migrants settling there, Muslim and African refugees are very much a minority group and face much discrimination (Veelenturf, Guerin & Guerin, 2005).
Recent increases in government funding have resulted in the provision of more and better services. However, there are no specialist mental health services for refugees in Hamilton although the idea of specialist mental health services for refugees in New Zealand is not a foreign concept-there are specialist centres, 'Refugees as Survivors Centres,' located in Auckland and Wellington, and some specialist services available in Christchurch. Refugees are generally considered to be at high risk for mental illnesses such as depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder (Brundtland, 2000). But refugee women, who are also Muslim and African, and socially, racially, economically and religiously marginalised, would be expected to be at even higher risk for 'mental illness'. Somali migration to New Zealand was sudden and visible with less than 1% of the Hamilton population of 'African' ethnicity, and less than 1% Muslim, and a group that the majority of the Hamilton community knew little or nothing about. Other research of ours and others has documented and illustrated the marginalisation experienced by Somali in New Zealand (Bedford, 2004; Guerin & Elmi, 2004; Guerin, Guerin, Diiriye & Abdi, 2004; Guerin & Guerin, 2002; Ho, Bedford & Muntz, 2005; Veelenturf et al., 2005).
Engagement in cultural practices, ceremonies, and traditions is an essential component to successful resettlement of refugees in western countries. The practicing of traditions links with overall well-being and mental health. But identifying these traditions is difficult, at best, considering the long period of civil unrest, and the displacement of Somali from their homes and therefore their connections to land, people and culture.
In this paper we explore the fluid and dynamic nature of cultural identity through weddings and parties of a Somali community in New Zealand and how these events contributed to resilience and were linked with well-being and mental health and correspondingly served to prevent mental and social ill-health for the many women involved.
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