Challenges Faced by Social Workers in Refugee Program: The Case of Urban Refugees in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Abstract

Development and Inter Church Aid Commission (DICAC) is one of charity and development organization which has been providing social services for urban refugees for the past many years in Ethiopia. Ethiopia has been receiving and serving as a home for thousands of refugees flew from its neighboring countries. Currently a total of 409,066 refugees comprising of 239,286 (58.50%) Somalis, 73,059(17.86%) Eritreans, 62,256 (15.22%) South Sudanese, 30,282 (7.40%) the Sudanese and 4,183 (1.02%) from several other countries, which includes Kenya, Djibouti, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Yemen, Burundi, Rwanda and Uganda residing in Ethiopia, out of which 5000 are urban refugees. The type of service provisions for urban refugee by social work agency includes awareness raising, counseling for people living with HIV and AIDS, youth education, medical care, social networking and vocational trainings. However, the types of services provided by the agency through its social workers are not to the level of professional social work standards. The social workers have been facing problems in delivering these activities. Thus, the study reveals that a combination of multiple factors hindering social workers from delivering social services to the level of social work standards. Among the factors the study identified less number of social workers with compared to refugee population hindered form providing adequate services. Communication with refugee’s part of problems as refugees speaks many different languages. Scattered settlements resulted in difficulties to deliver services. Inadequate trainings for social workers by professional social workers impacted on bellow standard program quality.