FORMAT FOR DISTRICT LEVEL REFERRAL DIRECTORY
The Referral Directory:
A Referral Directory is an information book which provides the refugee camp community with guide to seek government, private & community services at the District, Taluk and Local level.
The need for Referral Directory:
The refugees require lot of services like infrastructure, education, health and other community services to lead a normal life. The services and assistance they enjoy is very minimal. But they need lot of services for their better living. Moreover not all services can be found in one common place. The services are scattered at different levels in each district and there is no much information about the available services. When problems or need arise, people do not know where to access and seek help. Hence, referral directory helps to provide information on the services available in the districts.
The user of Referral Directory:
The Referral Directory will be available within the camp with the responsibility given to the Camp Leader/Task Force. The Directory can be used by all the people like women, children, youth, men, adolescents & elders in the camp. Also the Directory will be with the ADRA office, Government and other NGOs.
Benefits of the Referral Directory:
The resources available can provide assistance in the areas mentioned below:
- Academic concerns
- Legal concerns
- Health concerns
- Substance Abuse
- Emotional concerns
- Livelihood concerns
- Community concerns
Thus the Referral Directory is helpful to provide information on various services available within the district to help the camp community.
The information regarding the services can be collected through two sources. They are Primary and Secondary sources.
Primary sources of information:This is a firsthand information. The concerned person in the organization is met personally and the details regarding the available services are collected. A primary source can be a person with direct knowledge of a situation, or a document created by such a person. It serves as an original source of information about the topic.
Secondary sources of information:
Second-hand, published materials are called secondary sources. They are called secondary sources because they are created after primary sources and they often use or talk about primary sources. Secondary sources can give additional opinions on a primary source. Secondary sources can be obtained from libraries, books and articles. For secondary sources, often the best sources are those that have been published most recently. A secondary source interprets and analyzes primary sources. Secondary sources may have pictures, quotes or graphics of primary sources in them.
It includes the information that is collected through other sources like searching the web sites of the concerned departments, referring the telephone directories and already existing sources. Some types of secondary sources include publications like textbooks, magazine articles, journal (which interprets or reviews findings), criticisms and commentaries.
General Picture of a Referral Directory:
The Referral Directory for the refugees could include information on various departments and organizations at three different levels namely District, Taluk and Panchayat. The services can be categorized under 10 different headings. They can be listed as follows:
1. Government Departments:
The Zonal team can seek the help of Tahsildar and Special Tahsildar and can update the information on all Government Departments and different schemes that are beneficial to the refugees.
2. Education Department:
The information on local schools and NSS unit of colleges can be collected.
3. Police Department:
The information of Police department at the District level, the crime branch, Q branch, Investigation department and local police can be collected.
4. Health Sector:
The information on Government hospital at District and Taluk level and PHC services need to be included.
5. NGOs permitted to work with Refugees:
The Directory can include services of NGOs that work with refugees.
6. NGOs:
The Government supported NGOs alone can be included.
7. Other Agencies:
This head can include information on counseling centers, de-addiction centers, positive networks and District level AAs.
8. Emergencies:
During emergencies like accident or fire, the contacts of ambulance services and fire stations are essential.
9. Public Services:
Any services that are availed by refugees like the bank, transport facility or sports facility need to be included.
10. Other services:
The services that are not covered under the above heads but are very important for the refugee community can be included under this head.
