Connecting Stakeholders
In February 2020, then-President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih announced the creation of the National Reintegration Center (NRC), a facility built to rehabilitate and reintegrate Maldivian citizens repatriated from the conflict zones, the majority of whom are women and children.
However, there are several obstacles to effective re-socialisation. The delivery of post-release services to Maldivians returning from conflict zones, as well as in-community monitoring and supervision, will be complicated by geographical distance and the centralisation of resources in the Malé area.
Furthermore, rehabilitation and reintegration plans for returning Maldivians are prepared on a case-by-case basis by government actors, sometimes independent from civil society organizations and in-community partners. This results in a limited offer of recidivism reduction programming and a limited capacity to evaluate, unify, or replicate good practices. But disseminating knowledge and awareness to stakeholders within any social service system is a difficult, crucial, and often underemphasized component of creating consensus around any given issue.
To overcome this, it is essential to establish a network of actors to enhance collective knowledge and combine each member’s contributions into both new insights as well as the provision of services for Maldivian women and children.
Enhancing Knowledge & Awareness
In addition to connecting key stakeholders who can support the reintegration and rehabilitation of Maldivians returning from conflict zones, the Salaama network will also enhance their knowledge and awareness of good and promising practices in the field of reintegration and rehabilitation of returning individuals, particularly women and children.
General Knowledge
Effectively and efficiently supporting the reintegration and rehabilitation of those returning from conflict zones in a way that reduces the risk of recidivism and enhances public safety requires framing the context appropriately and creating a synchronous ecosystem of actors.
As part of our plea to approach rehabilitation and reintegration from a multi-agency and multi-stakeholder approach, we will encourage connectivity, information sharing, problem solving skills, and motivation among all Salaama network members.
To that end, all members of Salaama will work towards achieving a shared understanding of key issues that will create interdisciplinary knowledge and facilitate the design and delivery of programs that ensure a safe, healthy, and dignified return to the community for all.
Specialized Knowledge
To provide appropriate services for all returning Maldivians, particularly women and children, all stakeholders involved in the rehabilitation and reintegration process should enhance their ability to conduct appropriate needs assessments, which includes addressing mental health needs of individuals. This will allow them to develop programs that ensure the safe, healthy, and dignified in-community reintegration of individuals in a manner that is both context- and culturally relevant as well as consistent with good and promising practices identified by international frameworks, instruments, agreements, and standards.
Our goal is to ensure that all programs can focus on changing those characteristics that are believed to be the cause of an individual’s risky behaviour (rehabilitation) and thus lead to an individual’s productive functioning in society (reintegration). The Salaama network will focus on building, strengthening, and maintaining social networks that can provide supportive relationships.
Practical Knowledge
The Salaama network is seeking to provide a continuum of care, which begins with repatriation and does not cease when individuals return to the community.
To advance a national community-led re-entry and rehabilitation initiative that can operate in conjunction with and in support of local stakeholders, the Salaama network will increase the capacity of all actors involved to provide necessary MHPSS services to returnees, particularly women and children, and to set up locally-led reporting mechanisms to facilitate the appropriate delivery of in-community services.