Together We Stand

[ 55 ] The importance of humanitarian organizations in empowering marginalized groups Mr Ehssan Saleh Taieb, Secretary General of IIROSA; and Dr Ashraf Salem, Director of the Center of Research and Studies in IIROSA S ocial researchers often face terminological challenges. Terms can be loose and vague and their concept and connotative meaning may be subject to the ideological and social context and the political position of users. When talking about marginalized groups, the first thing to cross the mind is women, although women are not marginalized in the Scandinavian countries, for instance. Similarly, indig- enous people are considered marginalized in countries such as Australia and the USA, but not in almost all Latin American countries. Indeed, the term ‘marginalization’ is in need of a clear connotative definition to clarify whether its meaning is confined to negligence or whether it exceeds that to indicate exclusion, deprivation of rights and services, and oppression. However, we can comfortably say that marginalized groups boast a range of categories that may vary from one society to another and from one era to another. Marginalization is a big and movable map that includes a number of categories such as poor people; the unemployed; patients; religious, linguistic and ethnic minorities; people with special mental and physi- cal needs; women; children; the elderly; indigenous people; residents of countryside, slum and remote areas; refugees; internationally displaced persons; migrants; victims of conflicts; orphans; children of unknown parentage and street children. Such a detailed descriptionmay get us out of the maze of theory and help us to realize the size of the problem, its implications and the importance of joint international efforts to deal with them. ‘Empowerment’ is no less problematic than ‘marginalization’ as it also carries a wide range of connotations. The term ‘enabling’, for example, may be semantically acceptable in the context of development. However, ‘empowerment’ is the adopted term in the United Nations’ literature and documents which means “strengthening, giving power and authority”. And the question is: does empowerment hold such meanings in this context? According to Minkler and Wallerstein (1997), the concept of empowerment appeared for the first time on 1950. During that period, social work started to be more organized and focused on addressing power imbalances. During 1960-1970, the concept of empowerment was deepened with more roots and influence in social work due to the emergence of civil rights movements, women’s movements, rights of disabled persons and other social-based movements. During the 1980s, the concept of empowerment appeared in psychology writings as a “participatory process through which individuals control their lives and environment.” Later, the concept appeared more systematically in education, nursing and health liter- ature. The term was defined in education literature as the process of transferring of power from one group to another which resulted in liberty and shared power and authority. The denotative meaning of the term ‘empowerment’ is strengthening or authorization. Views regarding its definition have varied. Some believe that empowerment is “a strategy to strengthen poor people and enhance their right to self- determination by participating in decision-making at the local level which may result in conflict of interest between building strength and organizing poor people, joining them in common goals and interests and enhancing their participation in local and governmental organizations to transform them from service-recipients to service-demandants.” Others define empowerment as “the approach through which individuals, groups and communities are enabled to take control over their circumstances and achieve their own goals and, thus, to be able to help themselves and others to maximize the quality of their lives by focusing on the strength points of controlling resources through increasing the partici- pation in community actions.” It is also defined as “engaging people (particularly those who traditionally do not have a lot of influence) in improving Image: IIROSA Empowerment is a participatory path, and researchers recognize NGOs’ strengths in achieving it T ogether W e S tand