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Global humanitarian standards increasingly call for greater refugee participation in the decisions that affect refugees’ lives, with the dual aim of developing more equitable relations with refugees (transformative participation) and improving the effectiveness of aid interventions (instrumental participation). However, the limited research available suggests past approaches to refugee participation have habitually failed to meaningfully include refugees in the decision-making processes of humanitarian programs and policies. Rather, humanitarian organizations are criticized for paying lip service to refugee participation while maintaining control over important decisions and, thus, their power in relation to refugees. Though this issue has long been recognized as problematic, few studies have tried to understand and explain why efforts to implement meaningful refugee participation continuously fail to achieve this concept’s empowering and transformative objectives. The following dissertation responds to this query through an in-depth case study of refugee participation in the context of Beirut, Lebanon with the objective of understanding: how urban refugees are able to participate in decision-making processes of the humanitarian interventions that impact their lives; what barriers exist that impede their participation; why these barriers endure; and what the consequences of a lack of meaningful refugee participation are to refugees and to the wider humanitarian response. I answer these questions by drawing on semi-structured, qualitative interviews with a diverse group of refugee participants (44 interviews) and humanitarian organizational participants (42 interviews). This data is triangulated by comparing and testing the information received from interview participants with each other and against documentary evidence, such as government and NGO policy documents and reports, quantitative studies, newspaper articles, field notes, and academic studies. My analysis is further strengthened by a conceptual framework built on three approaches: the concept of meaningful participation and what this really entails; a Foucauldian concept of power to explain how discourses of power/knowledge shape and produce the relations between refugees and humanitarian organizations; and the Capabilities Approach as a comprehensive framework that can strengthen and guide participatory processes to ensure they maintain their transformative objectives. Relying on the perspectives of both humanitarian organizations and refugees, my research reveals conflicting understandings of what refugee participation means to these groups. Most humanitarian organizations view their efforts as generally successful and think that they listen to refugees. In contrast, refugees feel that their voices are frequently dismissed or ignored, particularly when their requests fail to match up with what organizations have already decided. This failure to listen to refugees’ voices and what they see as important creates a continuous gap between how humanitarian organizations, the Government of Lebanon, and refugees frame the problems at hand and the solutions to address these problems. In turn, this gap limits the impact of humanitarian efforts that aim to ‘protect’ refugees–in the fullest sense of this word–as refugees’ real needs go unmet. This forces refugees to respond in the few ways open to them, by resisting, manipulating, or avoiding humanitarian interventions all together, further undermining the effectiveness of these interventions. It is often implicitly assumed that refugee participation will naturally lead to its intended outcomes of greater program effectiveness and more equitable power relations between refugees and humanitarian organizations. However, this thesis demonstrates that neither of these objectives can take place unless refugees have influence and control over the decisions that affect them. Building on these findings, I offer a number of concrete recommendations to address the barriers identified in the research and help make meaningful refugee participation a reality.

Immigrants and refugees in the U.S. tend to face many significant difficulties in obtaining good health care. In this analysis, I review what is known and unique about the health of Middle Eastern immigrants/refugees in the U.S., with a particular focus on Iraqis, and identify the barriers to healthcare that they commonly face. The most significant obstacles noted include cultural and religious differences, poverty, discrimination and distrust, and language barriers. In the process of discussing these factors, I reveal how this population understands health in the context of their religion and of their migration status. I also extrapolate how the barriers they face are likely to be exacerbated due to the COVID-19 pandemic and postulate solutions to these issues. / Urban Bioethics

It has been recognized that high quality communication is required to help improve shared decision making between clinicians and patients. This makes the role of the interpreter all the more important to help LEP, or emerging English speakers in mental health encounters. While there are many studies on the clinician and patient experiences in cross-cultural mental health encounters, there are only a few qualitative studies that look at the interpreter experiences in a mental health context. As mental health issues in LEP or emerging English speakers increase, there is a gap in the literature as to how to successfully improve the quality of care using interpreters in mental health encounters. Using qualitative methods, this study aims to address this gap by exploring the experiences of interpreters when interpreting for mental health encounters. Seventeen interpreters from the Philadelphia area were interviewed, representing 19 languages (8 Spanish only, 1 Nepali only, the rest interpret for multiple languages). They were asked about the following: 1) challenging experiences in the triadic relationship between interpreter, clinician and patient when discussing mental and emotional health, 2) their experiences in interpreting mental health concepts into another language, 3) their experiences in culture brokering and 4) their opinions on how to improve mental health encounters using interpreters Findings include that mental health concepts and queries can be challenging to translate due to language differences (structure, limited vocabulary), cultural differences (including stigma), the interpreter is often called to cross boundaries by both patient and clinician, many interpreters desire mental health training, and feel that clinicians need training on how to work with interpreters. The use of these findings can help support the agency and autonomy of emerging English speakers in mental health encounters. / Urban Bioethics

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Between 2018 and 2021, an average of around 400,000 children per year, were born into arefugee life. Infants account for almost half of alldeaths among children under the age of five, as a direct result of lack of support and knowledge throughout the pregnancy, during labour and thefirst days of a new-borns life. Due to the significant lack of staffing within refugee camps, midwives are required to train people living within the camp to support them during delivery and thus they are in need of equipment that can convey the complexities of labour and support the users to ensure proper understanding and expertise needed to facilitate complication-free labour. Not every birth in a camp results in a dire situation, but when they happen, complicationsare often a result of neglecting natural and basic human needs, resulting in preventable complications. Throughout this project, with the help of Brita-Stina Nordenstedt donation, I have researched what could be the reasoning behind this unsettling statistic, what optionsal ready exist, and in dialogue with midwifes who have worked in refugee camps, tried to envision a solution that could prevent certain complications from occurring in the first place.

Women in the Context of International Refugee Law Abstract The refugee definition enshrined in Article 1(A)(2) of the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees does not mention gender or sex as a potentially relevant factor when establishing the refugee status. However, with the human rights evolution at the end of the 20th century, it became imperative that the definition is interpreted in a way which will provide protection to women facing either gender-specific persecution (persecution in specific forms only applicable to women for the reason of their sex), or gender-related persecution (persecution for the reason of being a woman). The thesis explores the interpretation of the notion of gender-specific persecution and discusses several examples of this form of persecution: forced marriage, female genital mutilation and sexual violence. Then it considers the Convention grounds for persecution (i.e. particular social group, political opinion, religion, race and nationality) and a variety of possible arguments for a gender- sensitive interpretation of these grounds for the purpose of encompassing cases of women facing persecution because of their opposition, whether explicit or tacit, to patriarchal traditional societies based on inequality between sexes manifesting for example in resistance to female...

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The subject being studied is education for refugee children. Today, there are many children that are not allowed, or have the possibility to go to school and get an education which is a failure towards children's development in relation to human rights. Despite that refugees are supposed to have rights to be provided education, they are reported getting lower access to education than other children. The purpose of this study is to understand the educational contribution from an organisation’s perspective and how to understand what needs to develop to ensure all refugee children with education. The research question that this study is based on is: How can we understand the role of education at a young age for refugees in relation to children's development? The method chosen for this study is a case study through two reports of the United Nation High Commissioner (UNHCR) to collect data of their education strategy implemented in a project called Educate A Child. Theory selected to analyse and understand the strategy is Pierre Bourdieu's theory of Field, Capital, and Habitus. The conclusion of the study is that the educational sector has several factors that play different roles. Teacher’s training is of great importance and must be taken more into account in their role and responsibility towards the children, the economic capital is important to be able to develop opportunities for children to attend school, and inclusion and partnership also play a great role. Keywords that have been used are education, primary school, UNHCR, refugee children.

The aim of this Master Thesis is to find the most suitable amount of photovoltaic (PV) panels to sustain an off-grid thermal energy storage (TES) system and to compare a maximum power point tracker (MPPT) with a pulse width modulator (PWM) in order to analyze which one of them that best suits the system. The purpose is to provide feedback on the design of the electrical part of the system in order to make it suitable for testing in a school in an Uganda refugee camp. This is done by developing a simulation model and by performing an economical analysis of the system. Additionally, visits to the considered refugee camps are done. The results are based on data from the camps and interviews at the Physics department at Makerere University and consider the number of meals cooked by the TES as well as economical profitability and payback time. The recommended amount of PV panels is nine and the recommended controller is an MPPT. The simulation shows that the system reaches a point where an increasing number of panels doesn't increase the number of cooked meals by much. The economic analysis shows that this small increase is not enough to make up for the extra costs of adding more PV panels. Having a lower cost, PWM is preferred in the early years by the economic analysis. However, having a low efficiency, it is less superior to the MPPT. The payback time and revenue are better for the MPPT in the investigated cases. It is important to consider that the model doesn't show reality to a full extent. Experiments are made where it is found that the model is inaccurate on an hourly level but can be considered valid over longer periods of time. When choosing the results, a trade-off is made between maximizing the revenue or shortening the payback time of the TES system. Considering rough circumstances and the uncertain future of the camps existence, short payback time is chosen. This results in nine panels being the optimum amount. However, if the aim is to maximize revenue, twelve panels are better than nine. The price of firewood is a factor of uncertainty which this study relays a lot on and it's thereby important to consider when reading the results. Suggestions for future studies are to investigate the price development of firewood further or to test the use of stones in the thermal storage tank to decrease costs. Additionally, possible utilization of surplus produced energy from the system could be investigated in order to find extra benefits from the installation.