Clark University - Clarknews winter 2004
PRA comes home
A conflict-mediation and community-building process developed at Clark and used worldwide helps ease intercultural tensions in Lewiston, Maine
By Tammy Griffin-Kumpey
While working in Kenya some 20 years ago, research professors Dick Ford and Barbara Thomas-Slayter developed a methodology that links conflict mediation and peace building with community-based development and action. Since its inception, the process known as Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) has been used successfully to resolve conflict and build stable, thriving communities in developing countries worldwide. This past fall, Ford and Professor Laura Hammond, both of whom have worked in Somalia, tested the methodology closer to home.
During the fall 2003 semester, Ford and Hammond offered Clark graduate students from the International Development, Community and Environment (IDCE) Department a course on PRA. They worked on a community-building process to help the
city of Lewiston, Maine, and a group of resident Somali immigrants bridge a gap and ease intensifying intercultural tensions. It’s the first time that Clark has used PRA in a U.S. peace-building context. Read the research report.
Misunderstandings fuel tensions
According to Ford, approximately 2,000 Somali immigrants moved to Lewiston between 2001 and 2003. They were "secondary migrants," coming not from Somalia directly but from other U.S. cities, particularly from areas around Atlanta. Somalis came to Lewiston because housing was affordable, there were plenty of jobs, and it was safe—unlike some of the cities in which they had been settled by the U.S. government. But as jobs in Lewiston disappeared with the failing economy and more people in the community were in need of once-abundant affordable housing and social services, some longtime Lewiston residents became angry and resentful. They blamed the Somali immigrants for the city’s economic woes and scarce resources. Language barriers, coupled with cultural misunderstandings and myths, drove the wedge further between the longtime residents and Somali immigrants.
"There was tension," says Shukri Abdillahi, an IDCE graduate student from Somaliland. Fueled by the media, Abdillahi says, the tension grew. In May 2002, the mayor of Lewiston published a letter in the local newspaper asking Somalis to discourage their friends and relatives from moving to Lewiston. The letter provoked outrage among the Somali community. In January 2003, a white supremacist group called Church of the Creator descended, uninvited, upon Lewiston, spewing rhetoric of hatred and threats of violence against the Somali refugees. The mayor’s letter, which many agree was not meant to have the response that it did, and the Church of the Creator’s visit was a wake-up call to the Lewiston townspeople, Abdillahi says. Ford adds that the Lewiston community reacted quickly, holding a "Many and One" rally to counter the demonstration by the supremacist group. Some 5,000 people from Lewiston and other parts of Maine came to the rally in support of their Somali neighbors.
Building consensus and unity
"The Lewiston community was struggling," says Ford. "But they were not in crisis; there was no major violence."
However, the community wanted to address the problem before it became a crisis. Abdillahi and Hammond visited Lewiston and initiated a collaboration between Clark’s IDCE program, the city of Lewiston and the Somali community. Lewiston’s Assistant Administrator Phil Nadeau and Immigrant and Refugee Programs Manager Victoria Scott, and Somali Community Services Executive Director Abdirizak Mahboub enthusiastically supported the project and helped the Clark team contact other community organizations. Ford developed a course around a hands-on community-building experience that partnered each student with a Somali family. Abdillahi was one of 15 IDCE graduate students to take the course.
The group focused on one Somali housing unit in the city, which consisted of about 90 families, approximately 60 percent of whom are Somali. The graduate students lived with their assigned families over the course of three weekends. They worked with Ford and Hammond to facilitate a process to help the community see itself in a new light and create consensus and unity. The students brought the Somali people together in open meetings where they created charts, diagrams, maps and other visual representations of their community. Most of the discussions were conducted in the Somali language.
According to Ford, conflict mediation requires digging deeply into the spatial, historical and socio-institutional experience of a community and developing a profile of the problem and its causes. By drawing and presenting these visual maps, the community can begin discussions about their needs. It helps community members understand the nature of their problems and work together to implement solutions. Ford says the process helped the Somalis establish common ground, values and goals that could be endorsed by all members of their community.
Mobilizing to change
Graduate student Stephanie Daniels says it was a challenge to be so involved without making or guiding all the decisions. "We asked them questions to facilitate the process and refrained from making suggestions so they could come to conclusions themselves," she says, explaining that this method prompts discussions that may not happen otherwise and empowers the Somalis to make choices that are right for them.
"The Somali community is very strong," says Daniels. "And they are beginning to understand each other better and are working toward a resolution."
"This project mobilizes people," says Abdillahi. "People see the need for change, and they build partnerships. When they see that they have ownership, they can make their own change. It took a while to build trust—we only had a few weekends, but it’s a beginning. They’ve started a positive process."
‘A good beginning’
"They’re off to a good beginning," Ford agrees, explaining that the Somalis have defined their own high needs, which include unified leadership, strong community organizations, jobs, education, health and transportation. "Refugees are not hopeless people."
Ford likens their experience here to "traveling through Europe without an American Express card." He adds that many of the refugees are highly educated and once held professional positions in Somalia, but the credentials to prove it have been lost in the ashes of their war-torn nation. The exercises used by the Clark group will help the Somalis adjust and move forward to rebuild their lives.
"They found that their main priorities are to organize themselves as a community with a recognized leadership, and to strengthen their communities so they can help themselves rather than look to others for help," says Hammond. Once the Somalis organize, she says, they can begin to work successfully with other organizations in Lewiston and the surrounding area. Although some of the students will continue to work with the Somalis in Lewiston, Hammond says, the ultimate goal is to train the Somalis so they can conduct these workshops themselves and continue their forward momentum.
Mahboub plans to do just that. He hopes the Somali community will use PRA for future initiatives aimed at strengthening the Somali community and improving its relationship with the town.
"Using PRA techniques helped the community to sort out for itself what its priorities and needs are, rather than relying on help from outside," Mahboub says. "IDCE helped to give power to the community to bring other non-Somali partners into the process and engage with us on our own terms."
Mahboub adds that the community plans to hold a stakeholders’ meeting to present their results of the process to organizations working with the Somalis and to keep the process going. "We have high aspirations for the future," he says.
The preliminary report from the workshop has been praised by city officials. In a recent press release, Nadeau said "the benefits of such a needs assessment will most certainly be shared by other immigrant and nonimmigrant residents, both English and limited English speaking, who live in the city."
A model for U.S. communities
The success of Clark’s work in Lewiston may serve as a model for other U.S. communities that may benefit from PRA. Ford says that the city of Portland, Maine, has already inquired about Clark doing similar work in its community, which could lead to more learning opportunities for students. He also says some of the graduate students who participated this fall plan to develop research theses based on their experience.
"It was a privilege to be part of this," says Daniels, who especially enjoyed interacting with the Somali youth. "They were so articulate and comfortable in their environment. Now, they need to learn to integrate and keep their own culture intact. It’s just so satisfying to be part of such a personal and important planning process."
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