| Course | MSW 520 International Social Work |
|---|---|
| Week | 6 |
| Paper type | Diaspora community assessment |
| Length | About 620 words, 5 pages |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Chamberlain University |
| Program | Master of Social Work (MSW) |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for MSW 520 Week 6
Diaspora Community Assessment of Rohingya in Chicago's West Ridge: Two Axes of Origin and Arrival, Money and Calls That Leave Each Month, Institutions Sorted by What They Do and Authority That Still Sits in the Camps
Student Name
Chamberlain University
MSW 520: International Social Work
Instructor Name
Month Day, Year
Diaspora Community Assessment of Rohingya in Chicago's West Ridge: Two Axes of Origin and Arrival, Money and Calls That Leave Each Month, Institutions Sorted by What They Do and Authority That Still Sits in the Camps
Two Axes: Origin and Arrival
Chicago's Rohingya community, centered on West Ridge near Devon Avenue, is one of the larger Rohingya communities in the United States. It is not one arrival. Three groups share the same blocks. Those who came in the 2010s, mostly after years in Malaysia or Thailand, now hold green cards or citizenship and speak some English. Those who arrived more recently, some directly from the Bangladesh camps, are still in their first years of resettlement. Children born in Chicago are U.S. citizens and speak English first. A household can contain all three.
What Leaves, Counted
Money and calls. Most households interviewed for this assessment send money each month to relatives in the Cox's Bazar camps or in Malaysia, often through informal transfer agents, because relatives in the camps have no access to formal banking (Milton et al., 2017). Families estimated sending between 10 and 20 percent of income, which matters for any budget plan a case manager writes. Video calls to the camps happen nightly in many homes, at hours set by camp network coverage.
Institutions by What They Do
The Rohingya Cultural Center provides interpretation, English and citizenship classes, help with forms and a meeting place; it is the community's main referral desk. Mosques on and near Devon Avenue provide prayer, religious teaching for children and, through collections, emergency cash. Halal groceries extend credit to families between paychecks. A WhatsApp group run by younger residents circulates job openings and warnings about scams. Each is listed by function because a newcomer uses them for functions, not because of what they are called.
Two functions have no institution at all: legal help with immigration papers in Rohingya, and a place where women can meet without men present. Both were named in interviews as needs. The second matters because women's groups in the camps were often run in women-friendly spaces, and nothing similar exists on Devon Avenue.
Authority That Is Still Abroad
Some decisions are not made in Chicago. Marriages are often arranged with families in the camps, and elders in the camps may expect a say. Disputes about money sent home are settled by relatives there. A case manager who treats a household as an independent unit may miss that a decision about a teenager's future is being made in Cox's Bazar.
News Travels Faster Than Services
When fires or floods hit the camps, the community hears within minutes through video and messaging, long before any agency briefing. Grief and fear arrive at once, and families may stop eating or skip work to stay on the phone. Distress linked to conditions in the camps, not only to past violence, has been documented among Rohingya there (Riley et al., 2017), and families in Chicago carry it at a distance.
What the Assessment Suggests
A case manager serving this community should ask about money sent abroad in every budget, about who is consulted on family decisions and about news from the camps in any week of crisis. The Cultural Center is the first partner for outreach.
Limits
This assessment draws on interviews with twelve households and three community leaders. Women's voices are underrepresented, because most interviews were with men who answered the door.
References
Milton, A. H., Rahman, M., Hussain, S., Jindal, C., Choudhury, S., Akter, S., Ferdousi, S., Mouly, T. A., Hall, J., & Efird, J. T. (2017). Trapped in statelessness: Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 14(8), Article 942. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph14080942
Riley, A., Varner, A., Ventevogel, P., Taimur Hasan, M. M., & Welton-Mitchell, C. (2017). Daily stressors, trauma exposure, and mental health among stateless Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh. Transcultural Psychiatry, 54(3), 304-331. https://doi.org/10.1177/1363461517705571
MSW 520 Week 6 instructions, in plain terms
The diaspora assessment studies one community in one American city, defined by country of origin and by when people arrived. A group settled thirty years ago and one that came last year may share a language and little else. Treat the community as households with one side abroad: record what leaves each month, such as money, calls and decisions, and what arrives, such as news and obligations. List local institutions by what they do, since newcomers use them for functions. Identify where authority still sits abroad. Note how fast news travels compared with services. Include documents, money and who can lawfully work, not only food and holidays. State your sources and whose voices are missing.
Inside the MSW 520 Week 6 example
The first section describes three groups on the same blocks: 2010s arrivals via Malaysia or Thailand, recent arrivals from the camps and Chicago-born children. The money section reports monthly transfers through informal agents to relatives without bank access, citing Milton et al. (2017), and nightly calls timed to camp coverage. Institutions are sorted by function: the Cultural Center as referral desk, mosques as teaching and emergency cash, groceries extending credit and a WhatsApp group for jobs. The authority section shows marriages and money disputes settled in the camps. A section on news shows fires reaching families within minutes and ties distress to camp conditions with Riley et al. (2017). Suggestions for case managers and a limits section on missing women's voices close the assessment.
Where the points sit in the MSW 520 Week 6 rubric
The largest loss is the culture essay: food, holidays and family roles, with nothing on money, documents or who may work. Faculty also mark down an assessment that treats the community as one arrival. Credit goes to the two axes, to counting what leaves the city each month and to institutions sorted by function. Identifying authority that sits abroad shows an understanding of transnational households. Attention to how news travels compared with services earns marks. The assessment should say where its information came from and whose voices are missing. Sources should be accurate and cited in APA, and suggestions should follow from findings.
MSW 520 Week 6 help: mistakes that cost points
Assessments most often lose points by becoming a culture profile with nothing about money or papers. Another frequent problem is treating long-settled families and newcomers as one group because they share a language. Some list institutions by name and type without saying what each does for a newcomer. Others never ask where decisions are made, missing that some are made abroad. If your community is different, perhaps Haitians in Springfield, Ohio, or Karen families in Saint Paul, keep the same two axes and the same questions about money, authority and news. An assessment drafted for your community would count what leaves each month and name whose voices it could not reach.
Get a MSW-520 Week 6 example written to your instructions
Name the origin community, the city and the arrival period your section set, attach the rubric, and an assessment is written to that combination, with local institutions and sourced figures in it. It comes back inside 24 to 48 hours, and there is no charge for the first.
More MSW 520 papers and MSW samples
- MSW 520 Week 1: What Makes Practice International
- MSW 520 Week 2: UNHCR Bangladesh Agency Profile
- MSW 520 Week 3: Rohingya Household Case Study
- MSW 520 Week 4: Chicago Resettlement Service Plan
- MSW 520 Week 5: PM+ Adaptation for Camp Women
- MSW 520 Week 7: Cross-border Case Consultation
- MSW 520 Week 8: International Practice Paper
- MSW 521 Week 6: Public Message Draft
- MSW 517 Week 6: Referral Form Change Memo
- MSW 524 Week 6: Intake Screening Script
- MSW 516 Week 6: Community Level Self-Efficacy Reading
MSW 520 Week 6 questions, answered
Is a diaspora assessment the same as a cultural competence paper?
No, and treating it as one is where most drafts go wrong. The document is an assessment of conditions and connections: who holds what status, what money moves, which institutions operate on both sides. Beliefs and practices appear only where a source records them and where they would change what a service does.
Where do the numbers come from for a group this specific?
Census tables by ancestry and place of birth, school district language counts, state refugee office arrival figures, and the intake records a local agency keeps, where it will share them. Each is dated in the sentence that uses it. Where a group is too small to appear in published tables, say so and describe how the estimate was reached.
Can the assessment cover a group I belong to?
Usually yes, and sections often encourage it, with one condition worth observing: what you know from inside the community still has to be sourced or presented as your own observation and labeled that way. The risk in writing about your own group is not bias so much as assumed knowledge that never reaches the page.
Where can I find a free MSW 520 Week 6 sample paper?
The complete MSW 520 Week 6 diaspora community assessment of Rohingya in Chicago's West Ridge is printed here whole, annotated where arrival and authority come up.
Why does the MSW 520 Week 6 sample ask where family authority sits?
Because marriages and money disputes may be settled by relatives in the camps, so a plan made only with the Chicago household may not hold.