Building Equitable North-South Partnerships:

Lessons from the Social Work in Nigeria Project

Presenter: Dr Narda RazackGraduate Program Director

Associate Professor, School of Social Workrnazack@yorku.ca

P.I. Dr. Uzo AnuchaIb Miadonye (MSW Student)Petra Okeke (MSW Student)

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Presentation themes

1. Overview of project

2. Lessons learned from teaching abroad

3. The role of graduate students, challenges and benefits

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Nigeria…..

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History, Rationale and Local Context of the SWIN Project

• Project development phase: – 2004 to 2006

• Nigeria: opportunities for gender equality• Nigeria: Challenges for Gender Equality • The Social Work Programme – Department of Sociology, University of Benin

- Challenges and Struggles

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Nigeria: Challenges for Gender Equality

• Barriers to full participation by women in society.

• Gender-based status differences create special difficulties in 3 areas:– vulnerability to poverty– increased exposure to risk

for HIV/AIDS and other STDs – trafficking in women

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The Social Work Program –

Challenges and Struggles

•The Social Work Program – Dept of Sociology, University of Benin. • Challenges – Lack of:

– Academic staff with training in social work. – Relevant/appropriate curricula – Focus on critical areas– Resources – Adequate practicum supervision for students

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Critical Questions for SWIN-P

•How can we transform and re-vision social work education and training in Nigeria to tackle the “major social issues” of 21st century Africa such as large-scale poverty, unemployment and the social consequences of the HIV/AIDS pandemic?

–How can social work education in Africa develop and adopt new approaches that can support the transformation of social work practice?

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Social Work in Nigeria Project….

Goal:To strengthen the capacity of UNIBEN to train social workers within a sustainable, indigenously relevant model of social work.

This model will adapt aspects of the knowledge and skills developed in the West but will also create new models that are locally and culturally responsive to women’s vulnerability to poverty, HIV/AIDS and sex-trafficking.

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Principles/Values

• Lessons from Past: The Perils of Imperialism• The Paradox of Contemporary International Collaborations• The Process of Building Equitable Collaborations

– Indigenization rather than authentization – Reciprocity rather than a donor-recipient relationship– Valuing of all partners’ perspectives– Process: Participatory, equitable, and inclusive – Openness to developing new practices.

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Challenges …

• Lack of awareness/non-recognition of:– reciprocal benefits of internationalization to both North and South institutions– inequitable access to resources

• The paradox of funding policies….• The limitations/challenges of poor access to infrastructure that support teaching and learning

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Next Steps…

• 6-week summer residence planned at York in Spring, 2008 for 23 students in the MSW program • Develop/explore new research questions with our Nigerian partners

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Reflections on teaching abroad….

• Brief overview of my role in the project • Preparing to go abroad for research and teaching• Reflections on my experiences • Implications for North South relations and international pedagogy and research

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Decolonizing Strategies

“We, as transnational subjects of colour, are tasked with negotiating and articulating new racialized categories, patterns and politics”

(Subreenduth, 2008 p. 42).

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Decolonizing Methodologies: Pedagogy as Resistance

• Interrogate past and present, local and global conditions • Be aware of the binaries that are produced because of the dichotomous representation of the world where divisions are formed between local/global, citizen/foreigner, civilized/uncivilized (chow, 1993). • Distinguish between “internal colonization” and the former era of colonization of territorial spaces like India, the Caribbean and Africa (Spivak, p.172).

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Pedagogy as Agency

“The question of agency cannot be separated from the ongoing reconfiguration of power discourses that silence subaltern subject. This means that colonized subjects do not comply with dominant discourses but refashion and appropriate what is forced upon them...Working across differences to educate a diverse group of students towards academic achievement is a critically important goal, however unfulfilled, within many national education initiatives around the world today” (Subedi and Daza, 2008, pp.3-4)

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• Graduate Research Assistant– Co-author of: Annotated

Bibliography on Social Welfare in Africa (2007)

– Working with Nigerian and Canadian project team members on the revision of UniBen’s BSW curriculum

– Lead on content development for a SWIN project website

– Co-presenter at three conferences on the SWIN project

The Role of Students in the Social Work in Nigeria Project

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– Worked with project team members on the development of the MSW curriculum

– Organized a book drive for UniBen

• Traveled with four project team members (from York University and University of Windsor) to the University of Benin for one-week in December, 2007 to launch the MSW program– Had an opportunity to meet with UniBen BSW

students to discuss different perspectives of social work and potential linkage with York’s SWSA.

Our Role in the Social Work in Nigeria Project

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Benefits of Internationalization – Graduate Students….

• Connecting our theoretical knowledge of international social work and concrete knowledge and experience about international social work (in its various forms)• We are better prepared to practice internationally. • Participation on an international project and collaborative research enhances our skills in a global world

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Benefits of Internationalization – Graduate Students….

Broadened our research knowledge: • Experiencing and learning the extensive communication and collaboration involved in research with a North-South partnership.• Learning what unique challenges may arise when conducting research at a global level. • Challenge of writing a feasible research proposal from a North perspective to be conducted in the South.

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Benefits of Internationalization – Graduate Students….

• Learning the importance of having people on the research team that are connected to the North and South who can act as a mediator. • Learning how lack of/depletion of resources is affecting a certain population according to their own definition.

– Opportunity to hear about the problem and the areas of improvement through the lenses of the front line researchers in the Global South.

• Insight into the different ways social work is defined in globally particularly in Nigeria: what the professional role is perceived to be in the larger society, what the challenges of social workers in Nigeria presently, etc.

Thank You

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