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Forced migration and the resettlement experience combine to produce a set of social, cultural, economic and psychological challenges for forced migrants which may affect integration, mental and physical health, and access to health and social care. There is very little research on the resettlement experience of Ethiopian forced migrants in London, particularly on causes of mental illness and access to mental health care. Few studies have examined whether and how traditional beliefs and customs affect the experiences of this group in health care. The paper reports on a pilot study consisting of interviews with an Ethiopian priest, community leaders and Ethiopians working in the community health sector with the aims of improving our understanding of the issues, and to inform further study. Initial analysis suggests that this group faces multiple forms of disadvantage which affect mental health. A further interesting dynamic is the relation between lack of ‘help seeking behaviour’, due to cultural expectations and norms, and lack of access and engagement with Western treatments. Religious mechanisms and activities were also reported as bolstering coping mechanisms. Perhaps most significant was concern about the increasing suicide rate among this group, many respondents suggesting a direct causal link between suicide and maladjustment in exile.

Forced migrants (refugees and asylum seekers) are very vulnerable to mental health problems, and their difficulties are often made worse by the migration process itself. David Palmer describes a unique project, based in west London, that trains migrant qualified doctors to provide mentoring support to fellow refugees and asylum seekers experiencing mental distress.

Immigrants, asylum seekers and refugees living in Europe face a number of challenges in accessing or using health information and healthcare services available in their host countries. To resolve these issues and deliver the necessary services, providers must take a comprehensive approach to better understand the types of health information and healthcare services that these individuals need, seek and use. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to develop that comprehensive approach.

In this paper, a systematic literature review of peer-reviewed publications was performed, with 3.013 articles collected from various databases. A total of 57 qualifying papers on studies conducted in Europe were included in the review after applying the predefined inclusion and exclusion requirements, screening processes and eliminating duplicates. The information seeking and communication model (ISCM) was used in the analysis.

The findings revealed that while many health information and healthcare services are accessible in Europe for immigrants, asylum seekers and refugees, many of these individuals are unaware of their existence or how to access them. While our findings do not specify what health-related information these groups need, use or seek, they do suggest the importance and value of providing mental health, sexual health and HIV, as well as pregnancy and childbirth information and services. Furthermore, according to our results, health information services should be fact-based, easy to understand and raise awareness about healthcare structure and services available in Europe for this vulnerable population.

This study has a range of practical implications, including (1) highlighting the need for mental health and behavioural health services and (2) stressing the value of addressing cultural context and religious values while investigating (health) information seeking of people with foreign background.

This is one of the first studies to systematically review and examine the behaviour of immigrants, asylum seekers and refugees in relation to health information and healthcare services in the European context.

This research project explored how refugee community organisations (RCOs) could become more involved in the government's health agenda to improve the level of consultation and responsiveness in the design and provision of mental health services for ethnic minorities. The method involved a review of relevant literature, interviews with refugee community organisation leaders and community workers, and a survey of refugee service users' involvement with RCOs. The research found that the causes and effects of mental ill health in refugees as understood by interviewees were consistent with much of the literature in this area. The mental health needs of refugees are very similar across nationalities and ethnicities, and distinct from those of the general population and of other migrant groups. Appropriate responses, as understood by community leaders and professional community workers, are currently only partly and insufficiently provided by statutory health services, and there is extensive unmet need.

This chapter discusses collaboration between a UK university and an Ethiopian College of Teacher Education in supporting the introduction of pre-primary schooling into the Government schools of a large Ethiopian town. The project recognised the limited effectiveness of Minority World training programmes imposed upon a Majority World context, so it was designed in full collaboration with the local community’s educators and closely linked to indigenous practices and knowledge about schooling systems and child-rearing.

The UK university ‘expert’ deliberately did not ‘manage’ or ‘control’ the Project Team of Ethiopian teachers and teacher educators but supported them in designing and implementing a programme of professional development for local pre-primary teachers, based upon a cycle of observations, workshops, feedback visits to participants’ settings and formative evaluation to shape new initiatives.

The chapter discusses the inevitable challenges and difficulties encountered, resulting from different educational perspectives, from very limited resourcing and from gender and status issues within the Team. The project, now in its second year, is having impacts upon local pre-primary schooling, and confirms the empowering effect of a collaborative and sustainable model of Minority World support for Majority World educational initiatives.

Immigrant and second generation youth face distinct challenges adapting to school environments in the host society. Young people’s popularity is often influenced by style-based subcultures. This research investigates how students from diverse ethnic and linguistic backgrounds in Israel, a multi-ethnic society with a large proportion of immigrant youth, adopt subcultural identities, and the effects this has on popularity attainment.

This study makes use of a nationally representative quantitative survey of Hebrew instructed high schools. Results are analyzed through Structural Equations Modeling.

Results highlight how youth who have less tenure in the country and preserve indigenous languages are increasingly drawn toward delinquent subcultures as a means toward gaining popularity in school. Differences based on ethnic belonging are also discussed.

In order to create a more conducive environment for immigrant children to make friends with locals, educators require knowledge about the causes of social conflict. Immigrant youth are often drawn toward delinquent subcultures as a means for attaining social acceptance, which can lead to perpetual inequalities.

Subcultures are widely recognized as playing an important role in one’s choice of friends, but hitherto little research examined the mediating role that subcultures play for immigrant youth, especially in the Israeli context.

This study aims to investigate the linkage of identity of new and veteran immigrant students of the Ethiopian community in Israel, by examining their attitudes to children’s literature books written simultaneously in Hebrew and Amharic. The data were collected using focus groups of Ethiopian students attending a teacher training college. The main findings revealed that they referred to two major types of identity: one type is an unreconciled identity, characterized by defiance, which seeks to minimize the visibility of one’s ethnic group within the main culture and tries to adopt the hegemonic identity, whereas the other type of identity contains the original ethnic identity and – in contrast to the first type – tries to reconcile it with the hegemonic culture.

This is a qualitative study, which emphasis was on participants’ attitudes, beliefs and perceptions (Kalka, 2003). The goals of the research were to examine identity perceptions of students of the Beta Israel community, as they are exposed to bilingual literary works in Hebrew and Amharic.

The main findings revealed that they referred to two major types of identity: one type is an unreconciled identity, characterized by defiance, which seeks to minimize the visibility of one’s ethnic group within the main culture and tries to adopt the hegemonic identity, whereas the other type of identity contains the original ethnic identity and – in contrast to the first type – tries to reconcile it with the hegemonic culture.

This paper has shed light on an important subject and it would be worthwhile to continue the study using other methodologies.

This paper contributes to the structuring of a cultural code that serves to organize social meaning and establish individuals’ identity.

This awareness enriches the basis of their own values and allows them to enrich their attitude to their future pupils, for example, to recognize the value of local culture versus that of the immigrants’ place of origin, and to develop an understanding and acceptance of the diversity in the classroom. As they take part in building a multicultural Israeli education framework, dealing with identity patterns is also the key to their own integration in society.

The originality of the study lies in the usage of two new concepts – unreconciled and reconciled – as referring to the immigrants’ identities.

The collapse of the Somali Democratic Republic in 1991 led to a world‐wide diaspora. The purpose of this paper is to discuss and analyse Somali web sites in an attempt to demonstrate how they reflect the troubled history and politics of the homeland and continue to interest, involve, bring together and divide Somalis world‐wide.

Web sites were divided into categories, and a study of the community/political category was conducted. Visits were made to the Horn of Africa and elsewhere, and face‐to‐face interviews conducted. E‐mail contact was maintained with a number of Somali webmasters.

Community/political web sites was the most numerous category, with the majority being named after a geographical area associated with a group of clan lineages or sub‐lineages. They contain news, opinion pieces and other features in Somali and on some web sites in Somali and English. While web sites usually declare that the opinions in articles are those of the authors alone, they are unlikely to publicise views with which they are not in agreement.

The paper illustrates how web sites enable members of one diaspora community to keep in touch with a political situation at home that is exceptional, and to involve themselves in its controversies, should they wish to do so. It also shows how the web site has brought a new dimension to traditional methods of feuding.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the difficulties encountered when researching the adoption of information and communications technology (ICT) by small hotels in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and to indicate how some of these difficulties were overcome.

The background and theoretical framework of the research project is described, and the research difficulties analysed in the context of the literature and of experience elsewhere in Africa. Issues such as informed consent are considered from different cultural perspectives.

The conclusion is that an understanding of the political, economic and cultural context is essential to the carrying‐out of a successful research project in Ethiopia, and that these same factors are likely to have a major influence on the diffusion of ICT within the country.

An Ethiopian case study is of particular interest because unlike Tanzania, Kenya and much of the rest of Africa, the country's telecommunications industry remains in government hands, a broadband connection is very expensive, and the percentage of Ethiopians using the internet is very small – no more than 0.75 percent of the population in 2010 according to the figures of the International Telecommunication Union.

Little has been written about small hotels and other small and micro businesses in Addis Ababa, and little or nothing about the setbacks that can occur when researching them. This paper fills some of the gaps in the literature.

Refugees are among the most socially excluded and marginalised groups in the UK. This paper examines ways in which the refugee service user's voice can be heard and the power imbalance between service provider and service user addressed. Lessons learned from addressing the needs of refugees can be extrapolated for other disadvantaged groups.