The Church's Café Serving Migrants in Sweden: Creating a Support Network for Social Resilience

This chapter is a case study exploring the role of the Church’s Café in Sweden as a faith-based initiative fostering migrants’ social resilience. Drawing on preliminary fieldwork, including interviews with the priest, deacon, and migrant participants, the study spotlights the church's café as an inclusive social space and a supportive social actor. The café provides migrants with opportunities to socialize, access useful information, and get practical support for everyday needs. It also facilitates the connections with Swedish social services, and provides help in language practice and cultural orientation. The findings reveal the potential of faith-based grassroot initiatives in shaping migrants’ social resilience by bridging social networks, collaborating with civil
society, and promoting inclusion beyond religious membership. While the café cannot resolve complex bureaucratic challenges, its empathetic understanding and guidance strengthen migrants’ coping strategies and sense of belonging. The chapter argues that such grassroot initiatives demonstrate the strength and
effectiveness of local social actors (such as religious organizations) who can act as social bridges, enhancing migrants’ lived experiences and contributing to broader and ground-up understandings of social resilience and social integration.