Refugee women's health: collaborative inquiry with refugee women in Rwanda

A collaborative capacity building experience in a Rwandan refugee camp with refugee women from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is described in this article. In service to the American Refugee Committee, I taught 13 refugee women how to plan and facilitate focus group sessions with the larger community of refugee women. The facilitators then conducted 18 focus group sessions gathering data from 100 refugee women. Thematic results included the health implications of poverty, the struggle to survive, the overburden of daily work, ambivalence about family planning, and the lack of freedom to express themselves.