resilience

Consensus on the meaning of the term resilience has yet to emerge (UNESCO, 2015b), and that may be largely due to its recent broadened use, referring to contexts as varied in their intensity as coping with stress at work to the grave psychosocial impact of child abuse, extremism, violent conflict and displacement, in particular on children and youth. Because it is highly contextualized, ‘being resilient’ will have different levels of depth for the individual developing and/or displaying that core life skill, especially in MENA. In all cases, however, the life skill of resilience shall be understood, in general terms, as the constructive, personal ability to navigate changing circumstances successfully (American Psychological Association, 2010), thus beyond the restrictive understanding, according to which resilience is constrained to the capacity to survive, accept or resign oneself to an unacceptable situation.