Cultural competence in Disaster Management

Cultural competence in Disaster Management

Introduction

Today’s communities are associated with evolving demographics because people from different racial backgrounds are forced to intermingle in search of employment, work, education, or social life. Such populations set up are associated with ethnic and racial diversity. Disasters have tendency to emerge anywhere regardless of ethnic composition. The vulnerable cohort must get assistance irrespective of their socio-economic background. Therefore, the appointed crisis management team must inculcate cultural competence through their abilities, skills, and knowledge so that culturally diverse population do not get misunderstood or overlooked. Disaster management experts should be in a position to highlight cultural concerns of communities distressed by adverse events so that the victims don’t suffer from psychological distress. Besides, understanding cultural competence enables stakeholders to meet the community’s needs for a swift recovery. The following paper addresses cultural aspects required to evacuate the Ruby Lake and Longley neighbourhoods, in Riverbend city.

Concerns for Evacuating Ruby Lake and Longley neighbourhoods

Different factors need to be taken into consideration during evacuation efforts. All members of the community must feel that they are respected, and the evacuation efforts must be free from any prejudice. Some of the issues that need to be addressed during evacuation include:

Translation services

Because two different cultures are involved, there should be a translator for both parties. The victims should have their own translator, while the disaster manager should also have theirs. Translation services ensure that there are no instances of miscommunication. Communication barriers have been cited as the number one cause of delays or services failing to reach intended audience. The translator should also be professional ad they are properly versed with both source and target languages. It is also proper that the victims should be allowed to come with their own translators who understand how their culture operates. By victims hiring their own translator’s, chances of conflicts of interest become minimal, because the victims develop tendency to believe that their information was passed to the disaster managers the way they wanted. The evacuation process should also be unbiased because there are instances when the affected population is hesitant to give vital information, especially with the undocumented cohort who fears the governments retaliation.

Legal Document Status

There are individuals living in the city illegally through illegal entry or expired passports and permits. All these people must get treated equally with people having legal documented status. Through international conventions and tribunals, undocumented people also possess some rights in the same way as documented immigrants. These people have the right to proper shelter, food, clean water, and medications. During the events of disasters, the illegal migrants fear retaliation if their status gets discovered. During such a scenario, it is wise for the disaster management experts to concentrate with their mission of evacuation and providing other relief services. Any attempt to engage with the documentation status of a victim is moving beyond the allowed mandate of the worker. The social worker should engage dialogue to address such top concerns because in most cases the victims fear coming out to explain their plight due to fear of reprisal from government authorities. All cases of concerns must get addressed through utmost secrecy, unless the government makes it a requirement through legislations, or only if the victim is willing that their documentation status must get released. Through confidentiality and non-disclosure agreement, the victim becomes more confident when releasing important information, which in returns facilitates rapid service delivery. The emerging scenario becomes a win-win for both parties.

Concerns that need to be factored when evacuating Ruby Lake and Longley Neighborhoods

There are several issues that need to get addressed during the evacuation process for everything to move smoothly as originally intended. These concerns include:

Pregnancy

The pregnant women are very vulnerable due to sensitivity of carrying unborn children. The pregnant cohort associate with special meals and Medicare that must be consistently provided. These women must undergo regular checkup at the clinic. Pregnant women are also susceptible to certain allergies, which must also get factored through individual basis. Therefore, pregnant women must be given special consideration in terms of shelter, food, and medication. They must have a dedicated midwife in-house who evaluates the pregnancy progress and also assesses the women of any signs and symptoms of special complications.

The Vulnerable

These included the mentally retarded people, or victims suffering from special conditions like asthma, hypertension, high/low blood pressure, or any other special condition. Such individuals must also be separated from other people because they require special attention in terms of protective clothing, diets, and medication. For instance, individuals with psychological issues can never be housed in the same place with normal people. Therefore, the social worker must cooperate with the area residents and other stakeholders to understand such concerns. Isolating people with special concerns also ensure that cases of transmissible diseases like cholera e.t.c. There are also instances for immoral but illegal acts like prostitution. People engaging with such vices should also get isolated from the rest of the population, because they are susceptible to transmission of sexually related diseases that may end up increasing the program’s budget, against the wishes of the financiers.

Shelter Safety

The safety of the victims is also of paramount concern. The victims must be kept in a safe and hygienic environment free from any diseases. The environment must be habitable having clean water, decent, and have proper sanitation systems. The place should be safe so that people’s belonging are safe from criminals.

Prioritized concerns needed to evacuate victims

There are some concerns that should be given top consideration because they are instrumental towards the survival of a person’s life. Besides, these concerns also ensure the moral well-being for the evacuees, and they include:

Spiritual Access

The victims in Ruby Lake and Longley neighborhoods require spiritual nourishments. There are different denominations present, the Christians, Islam and Hindu. Even though it is challenging creating permanent places of worships for the identified groups, they should be given freedom to worship their Gods, through whichever way they prefer, whether in open-air or makeshift tents. Religious leaders should be allowed to visit the victims during any of their preferred worship days. Spiritual access should also be provided free from any kind of discrimination.

Segregated services

These are special services designed to cater for the interest of a particular cohort. For instance, the Muslims, in particular, females are not allowed to intermingle openly with their male counterparts. The situation becomes even more alarming when non-Muslims are involved. Besides, Islam has also detests consumption of certain meat products. Therefore, the social leader’s personnel must factor in the different cultural backgrounds when providing services to the victims.

Providing accommodation to the affected population

Amongst all the interventions necessary, accommodation is the most important because it is the place people will eat, sleep, and even relax during the day. Therefore, accommodation should get prioritized. However, housing is a challenge due to the expenses associated with accommodation arrangements. Housing requires a lot of money, and at the same time, some accommodation require long-term contract in terms of leases, and in some instance, even the makeshift tents require vast lands to get hired. Often, such requirements act as impediment towards relief services. Such scenarios require collaboration with local property owners and business people providing accommodation and housing services. The disaster manager should be in a position to explain to property owners and managers that the accommodation requirements are for short-term purposes, and that they will be reimbursed for the services provided, as per the policy of the humanitarian organization.

Challenges in evacuating ruby Lake and Longley neighborhoods in relation to socio-economic statuses

There are quite a number of challenges in evacuating the population from the two neighborhoods. To begin with, these are individuals who are used to live an affluent life, and suddenly their socio-economic statuses have been affected through a disaster. These individuals are confused and in a state of despair. Some inherent challenges likely to get encountered when handling Ruby Lake and Longley neighborhoods are:

Losing homes and other property

The individuals are faced with the harsh reality that they have lost their homes, and some of them do not have any roof above their heads. The individuals are also distressed because they have lost some or all of their belongings. These individuals are confused and do not know the next action to take. The social worker can engage them and ask if any of them had subscribed to disaster insurance policies products that can assist them acquire an immediate shelter. In case no person has an insurance cover, the social worker can take necessary steps to ensure that people receive adequate shelter even from makeshift tents until the situation resumes to normal.

Lacking Access to Transport

The disaster that occurred in the region destroyed infrastructure like roads and telephone services. People staying in these areas lack ways to move from one place to another. The social worker should therefore try their level best to ensure that communication services get restored. Besides, the evacuation process can also get done through the aid of a helicopter or a drone.

Conclusion

Disaster management is a very complicated affair to the social worker. From the above case involving Ruby lake and Longley neighborhoods, it is evident that several considerations had to be taken into account by the social worker to ensure that the distressed population was free from potential hazards. Some of the initiatives expected from a social worker during such scenarios are challenging. The social worker must provide adequate food, shelter, clothing, and medical services. Besides, the social worker must also segregate the communities. For instance, there must be special considerations for pregnant women, and at the same time cultural issues like religion must get observed. The victims are people coming from diverse socio-economic backgrounds, and their cultural heritage among other factors must get addressed before providing relief services. Such considerations are challenging and require intervention from all stakeholders. However, through cooperation from all parties affected, the situation becomes manageable, since cultural competency is fully observed.