Challenges to welcoming people with mental illnesses into faith communities

SummaryFaith communities are important to the psychiatric care of people with mental illness. I distinguish the effects of two principles of becoming welcoming communities: compassion, in which the community accommodates members with mental illnesses so they are fully included, and dignity, which rests on the essential worth of everyone.

Fostering Better Integration Through Youth-Led Refugee Sponsorship

World University Service of Canada (WUSC) participates in private sponsorship as a sponsorship agreement holder through its Student Refugee Program. More than ninety campus-based constituent groups known as WUSC Local Committees resettle approximately 130 refugee students to Canadian post-secondary institutions each year. This article seeks to assess the effectiveness of the Student Refugee Program’s youth-to-youth sponsorship model in integrating former refugees into their receiving communities. We outline the impact of the Student Refugee Program upon its beneficiaries, the important role youth volunteers play in supporting their integration and building more welcoming communities for newcomers in Canada, and the effect of the program on receiving societies. We conclude with recommendations for scaling up the program in Canada and sharing the model internationally.

Foreign Immigrants in Depopulated Rural Areas: Local Social Services and the Construction of Welcoming Communities

Many rural areas in Spain suffer an acute problem of depopulation. In recent years the arrival of foreign immigrant workers has contributed to alleviating the situation. The social services in rural areas play a fundamental role in the reception of these new residents, and in attending to their needs. These immigrants find themselves in a very vulnerable situation. Added to the needs of any family group with very limited resources are the terms of being a foreigner in an environment in which the coethnic support networks are very scarce. The capacity of both rural councils and local social services to promote the social integration of the immigrants is very limited due to the lack of resources, and to the difficulties associated with the provision of social services in depopulated rural areas. Through in-depth interviews, carried out in a mountainous depopulated region in northern Spain, we analyse the discourses of mayors, social workers and members of civil organizations. The conclusions suggest that the construction of welcoming communities requires reinforcing the community dimension of social work in rural areas, and from an ecological perspective that enhances social participation and coordination among the social actors. Specifically directed initiatives are needed by means of cooperation among the different levels of government and between public and private actors.

Building welcoming communities: Durham Libraries engage diversity

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