Essay Example on the Loss of Culture and Family by Syrians Due to the Civil War

Loss of Culture

Syria is one of the modern societies whose foundation was the cradle of civilization. The country's rich cultural history has been dated back to over 8000 years and it was one of the fastest growing lower and middle-income society based on the World bank's records. The country's tourism sector was among the leading sectors that formed the backbone of the country. The country's rich culture included diverse religion, traditional music, local cuisine, heritage, statues and their tradition.

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One of the impacts of the Syrian civil war on their culture was the destruction of their cultural heritage which includes the legacy of physical artifacts and a wide range of intangible attributes of the Syrian people that they inherited from the past generations. These cultural heritages had been maintained and presented up to 2010 when the civil war started. The destruction of the properties and artifacts. The ways of life changed from their stable homes and families to live as squatters and refugees in foreign country such as Germany, Turkey, US, Lebanon, Jordan, and Europe. In those foreign countries, the Syrian refugees are facing discrimination, hunger, isolation and some are separated from their families while some are placed in camps with people of different backgrounds. Women and children are raped while many are living in fear of violence and rape in those camps. All these problems affect their mental health. Many women suffer from PTSD as a result of gender-based violence (Deng, 1999; Donnelly, et al, 2011; Echeverr, et al, 2018; Eruyar, et al, 2017). The women health in those camps is also quite poor as they cannot access the basic sanitary wears while many are suffering from various diseases including HIV/AIDS as a result of rape.

Loss of Family

Currently, over 13.5 million Syrians have been displaced and between 364,792-522,000 people have been killed. The loss of families to death or separation from other family members in other refugee camps across Europe, Jordan, Lebanon, and America can also have a significant impact on the family members. Syrian women have been separated from their children and husbands, while some parents have lost their children and other close relatives with whom they had close family units. Being forced to live the experiences of losing a loved one has affected the Syrians and the memory of their love done being killed, raped or their property destroyed causes them the PTSD.

The displacement from their former stable home environment to a new environment as an asylum seeker has a significant impact on the self-esteem and the trauma, as well as stress, requires that the refugees should be accorded the holistic care. The social health workers have the potential of helping the refugee's transition smoothly by providing support using the ecological model of the social health work. Additionally, the social health workers can administer structured social and psychotherapy to help the refugee with their range of traumatic stress responses whether the setting is low resources or rich resource settings. Social and psychotherapeutic intervention covers practices such as cognitive behavioral therapy based on the evidence-based practices model as it has been proven to be effective in helping people overcome depression, stress and anxiety associated with such traumatic experiences such as war and transitioning into the new environment. Social workers can provide more than social intervention as they can administer social-educational and community-based refugee interventions. These interventions would help in facilitating personal community growth among the refugees. The social workers can work with the asylum seekers of various backgrounds throughout the stages of their resettlement.

References

Deng, F. 1999. "Introduction. Internal Displacement In Africa: An Overview Of The Crisis And The International Response." Refugee Survey Quarterly 18 (1): 1-8. DOI:10.1093/rsq/18.1.1.

Donnelly, Tam Truong, Jihye Jasmine Hwang, Dave Este, Carol Ewashen, Carol Adair, and Michael Clinton. 2011. "If I Was Going To Kill Myself, I Wouldn't Be Calling You. I Am Asking For Help: Challenges Influencing Immigrant And Refugee Women's Mental Health." Issues In Mental Health Nursing 32 (5): 279-290. DOI:10.3109/01612840.2010.550383.

Echeverri, C., J. Le Roy, B. Worku, and P. Ventevogel. 2018. "Mental Health Capacity Building In Refugee Primary Health Care Settings In Sub-Saharan Africa: Impact, Challenges, And Gaps." Global Mental Health 5. DOI:10.1017/gmh.2018.19.

Eruyar, Seyda, Julia Huemer, and Panos Vostanis. 2017. "Review: How Should Child Mental Health Services Respond To The Refugee Crisis?." Child And Adolescent Mental Health21 (11). DOI:10.1111/camh.12252.

Morris, Demetrios, and Antonis Kousoulis. 2017. "Refugee Crisis In Greece: Healthcare And Integration As Current Challenges." Perspectives In Public Health 137 (6): 309-310. DOI:10.1177/1757913917726019.

Muijen, M. 2016. "Overview Of European Refugee Mental Health Situation." European Psychiatry 33: S9. DOI:10.1016/j.eurpsy.2016.01.796.

Silove, Derrick, Peter Ventevogel, and Susan Rees. 2017. "The Contemporary Refugee Crisis: An Overview Of Mental Health Challenges." World Psychiatry 16 (2): 130-139. DOI:10.1002/wps.20438.

Sundvall, Maria, David Titelman, and Sofie Baarnhielm. 2018. "Challenges Of Combining Perspectives." Crisis, 1-9. DOI:10.1027/0227-5910/a000504.