**Nolwazi Ngcobo, Bongane Mzinyane and Sibonsile Zibane**

**Abstract:** The devastating effects of the recent floods in several townships in the KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa demanded an urgent humanitarian response. The extent of the flood disaster prompted both practicing social workers and social work academics to plan and provide psychosocial services for affected communities. The COVID-19 pandemic further compounded the situation in the process of engaging communities which were affected by the floods. Services that were rendered, due to necessity, included, although not limited to; trauma debriefing, grief and bereavement counselling, securing safe shelters for displaced individuals, social relief, and social security referrals. Framed within autoethnography, in this chapter we share our experiences in preparing for and responding to the needs of the communities compromised by pre-existing socio-economic and health vulnerabilities. Moreover, we report on how trauma-informed social work principles were challenged by unconducive settings common during disasters. These yielded significant lessons, particularly for social work academics. The experience of working with flood survivors forced us to rethink and redefine community engagement in academia that challenges the "ivory towers" approach to education. The field work asserted the importance of integrating indigenous knowledge systems in social work interventions alongside "flexible ethical" practice. The field work required us to center the peoples' interests, cultures and values in their intervention strategies. Furthermore, it unveiled that social work services are ineffective without strong participation and partnerships between social workers, community leaders, caretakers, and members and without inter-stakeholder collaborations. Lastly, we argue that for social workers to be relevant and effective, their intervention should be community-centered and context relevant.

#### **1. Introduction**

The Global Agenda for social workers continues to be driven by the priority needs of individuals, families, groups, and communities. "Social workers and social development practitioners are in the frontline to alleviate the hardships and challenges that people, communities, and societies face" (Lombard 2015, p. 482). With the rapid, widespread and intensifying climate change in every region and

across the whole climate system, Dominelli (2012) established the green social work (GSW) framework in 2012. This framework prioritizes social work interventions in the context of global disasters, climate change, and other crises. It calls for social workers to respond to needs, especially of disadvantaged populations, before, during, and after disasters.

On 11 April 2022, the flash floods severely damaged South Africa's KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) Province, destroyed thousands of homes and infrastructure and claimed hundreds of lives. As of 22 April 2022, at least 435 fatalities had been confirmed around the province, and there were still others missing. It is one of the deadliest natural disasters to strike the country in the twenty-first century and the deadliest since the floods of 1987, with a single day's worth of rain totaling 300 millimeters (Bouchard et al. 2022). Subsequently, the floods were declared by the then premier of KZN as a Provincial State of Emergency. Notable, the floods happened when South Africa was still under the National State of Disaster as declared by the government because of Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic,

In this chapter, as the authors, who are social work academics, we use collaborative autoethnography to reflect on our interactions with flood survivors from five South African townships during the (COVID-19) pandemic. The townships in which we are basing our reflections include Inanda, Ntuzuma, Marianhill, Tshelimnyama, and Nazareth. Floods and landslides hard hit these communities, and most resided in areas with pre-existing socioeconomic challenges. While this chapter focuses on social work during and post flood disasters, we also recognize the role of social workers in the prevention and management of disasters (Dominelli 2013; Shokane 2019; Willett 2019; Wu 2021).

The main functions of social workers during a disaster are the provision of relief and support, restoration, resettlement, and enhancing resilience. According to Van Breda (2018), building or enhancing resilience becomes a priority in less-resourced communities, such as in South African townships. At the heart of resilience building are "multilevel mediating processes that systems engage in to obtain better-than-expected outcomes in the face or wake of adversity" (Van Breda 2018, p. 2). Makhanya and Zibane (2020); Mkhize et al. (2014) emphasized that for African communities, the mediating processes should be rooted in indigenous, context-relevant knowledge and practices. Such assertions are stimulating current debates and an increase in research that focuses on the local knowledge and practices that enhance resilience in the face of adversity (Smith and Nguyen 2021; Van Breda 2018; Vo 2015). Against this backdrop, in this chapter, we embraced purposeful learning and affirmation of African indigenous knowledge and practices throughout our interactions with flood survivors, resulting in unique findings discussed in this chapter. This chapter begins with an introduction that briefly describes the context of our chapter. It is followed by literature on flood disasters and COVID-19, as well as a brief history of South African townships and social work practice during disasters. Furthermore, we explore the methods that framed our reflections. The

majority of the chapter focuses on the lessons learned throughout our intervention. The lessons include the manner in which trauma-informed social work principles were challenged by unconducive settings common during disasters, rethinking and redefining community engagement by academics, the importance of integrating African indigenous knowledge systems (AIKS) in social work interventions, and lastly, the value of partnerships and inter-stakeholder collaborations. *Ilima*, *ukugida*, and *Ubuntu* are some of the indigenous African practices that were incorporated during social work interventions. The analysis and discussion sections specifically clarify and elaborate on these indigenous terms. As authors, we contend in the conclusion that social workers' responses to disasters should be community-centered and context relevant.
