The Church's Café Serving Migrants in Sweden: Creating a Support Network for Social Resilience

With an increase in international migration, it is becoming significant to examine the function of religious organizations to present a philanthropic model in which religious membership is not perceived as a source of social visibility and access to social resources based on religious affiliation. Due to the cultural diversity of the migrant community, it is important to explore the role of religious institutions in fostering migrants' social resilience, regardless of religious membership or status. This paper reports on the findings of a field visit to the Church's Café in a small town in Sweden. In collaboration with a non-religious organization and the Church of Sweden, the Church's Café provides social and economic support to migrants. I investigated the Church's role in migrants' social welfare and the challenges associated with creating a support network to foster social resilience among migrants. This fieldwork expands on my ongoing research on social resilience and migration. I interviewed the priest, the deacon, a group of migrant women (from various Arab countries), and a young Afghan couple during my visit. The findings highlight the importance of faith-based organizations initiating social work activities based on a right-based social capital approach to shape the process of social resilience. I examine social networking and support networks as two characteristics of social resilience and two essentials of social work practices while working with migrants. In this connection, the Church's Caffe strives to enhance migrants' social experiences in the host country, which contributes to the process of social resilience. This paper paved the way for an interdisciplinary bottom-up research paradigm (using a social constructionist approach) to analyze social resilience as a process linked to right-based social capital and support networks. The findings also emphasize the significance of faith-based social work practices in supporting migrants in integrating into host societies.