“I need to be strong”: Refugee women embody resilience within personal, host, and faith communities

Abstract

This basic qualitative study sought to understand resilience from the perspective of women refugees. In June 2023, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 13 women refugees from Ukraine living in Teplice, Czech Republic. Findings demonstrated that participants embodied resilience within the context of their personal, host, and faith communities. First, family members were motivation to make the journey out of Ukraine and friends were helpful resources of information and meeting practical needs. Host communities included volunteers at international borders, churches on the journey, the Czech government, and various strangers as factors in their resilience. Finally, within faith communities, participants described their own personal Christian faith, “miracles,” and churches that were place to belong. This study is situated in the broad academic literature about resilience and refugees studies. Yet, the research findings add empirical data to corroborate conceptual and theoretical literature. Additionally, this research relies on data from refugee women themselves.