| Title | Advocacy and Empowerment in the Context of Refugee Health |
|---|---|
| Contributor | Sandra Schiller(author) |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.11647/obp.0479.13 |
| Landing page | https://www.openbookpublishers.com/books/10.11647/obp.0479/chapters/10.11647/obp.0479.13 |
| License | https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
| Copyright | Sandra Schiller |
| Publisher | Open Book Publishers |
| Published on | 2025-09-09 |
| Long abstract | Advocacy and empowerment are closely related concepts. Advocacy refers to efforts to support the rights and needs of a particular group or individual, while empowerment involves the process by which individuals or groups acquire the knowledge, skills, and resources necessary to take control of their own lives and advocate for their own needs. The first section of this chapter looks at ’health advocacy’. It emphasises that a human rights framework in refugee health requires health and social care professionals to engage inactions that advance the rights of individuals and groups towards social justice objectives. Following this, the next section introduces the concept of empowerment as it is commonly applied in health and social care, highlighting both political-activist and psychosocial perspectives. In order to illustrate the relevance of advocacy and empowerment in practice, the last section of the chapter provides a case example of a current project in which the fight against female genital mutilation (FGM) is closely linked to the empowerment of African women living in the federal state of Lower Saxony in Germany. |
| Page range | pp. 323–347 |
| Print length | 25 pages |
| Language | English (Original) |
Sandra Schiller is a lecturer and honorary professor specialising in Health Humanities at the Faculty of Social Work and Health, HAWK University of Applied Sciences and Arts Hildesheim/Holzminden/Göttingen (Germany). She completed her studies in Medieval and Modern History, English Literature and Linguistics. Her doctoral research explored the influence of political and cultural discourses on the formation of national identity in the context of the United Kingdom. Since 2008, she has led various (interprofessional) projects supporting health promotion, well-being and health literacy among persons with refugee experience in Hildesheim. She was a founding member of the Occupational Therapy Europe Interest Group on Displaced Persons and currently leads the German Occupational Therapy Association’s Working Group on Community Development, responsible for developing occupational therapy services for persons with refugee experience outside the traditional healthcare sector.