Tactical Notebooks, community

Together We Are Stronger

bharris — Fri, 25 May 2007 20:08:19 -0500

Together we are Stronger

By Erika Bocanegra, Coordinadora Nacional de Derechos Humanos, Perú

Download full notebook in English and Spanish below. [*note]

Peru’s Coordinadora Nacional de Derechos Humanos (National Coordinator for Human Rights, CNDDHH) is globally recognized as one of the most successful and effective coalitions in the world. We always talk about the importance of bringing ourselves together in order to have more strength and greater impact, but few have been able to achieve this as successfully as the Coordinadora.

Unfortunately, the global experience of the human rights movement is filled with coalitions that have failed as a result of division as well as lack of advocacy. This notebook analyzes the characteristics of a strong coalition and shows how to successfully fight against an authoritarian government, like that of Fujimori in Peru the 1990s.

The Coordinadora is a coalition of 63 human rights organizations in Peru. Founded in 1985, it has survived by its ability to join together and adapt itself to the changing political environment. The Coordinadora is composed of diverse organizations–urban and rural, Catholic and Evangelical church groups, national and regional focuses, among others. This broad variety in institutional profiles has legitimized CNDDHH at both the national and international level.

Among the strengths that have made the Coordinadora a significant reference point for the defense and promotion of human rights in Peru, and throughout the Americas, is the ability to make innovative political decisions while maintaining its unity, adhering to principles that guide their actions and utilizing mechanisms to find agreement about priorities in order to act with coordination because "together we are stronger."

*Note: You need Adobe Acrobat Reader to open the files marked with an asterisk (*). You can download a free version of this program from www.adobe.com.

The Human Rights Education Program for Women in Turkey

bharris — Fri, 25 May 2007 20:08:18 -0500

The Human Rights Education Program for Women in Turkey

By Liz Ervecik Amado

Download full notebook in english and a brief summary of the notebook in Russian and Armenian below. [*note]

In this notebook we learn about how effective and beneficial building collaborative relationships with government institutions can be to advancing human rights education. Women for Women’s Human Rights (WWHR)-New Ways in Turkey gained the support and use of government resources for furthering human rights education of women at the local level.

WWHR-New Ways developed a highly successful human rights education curriculum for women but needed an accessible, structured and sustainable way to reach women in need of learning about their rights. They found and developed an excellent partnership through government run, local level community centers. These community centers offered not only professional social workers who could be trained by WWHR-New Ways in facilitating the human rights education curriculum, but also a safe and accessible place for women to learn about their rights. We hope this notebook will provide ideas and insights for others as they seek opportunities for building mutually beneficial and sustainable relationships with government bodies for furthering human rights efforts.

*Note: You need Adobe Acrobat Reader to open the files marked with an asterisk (*). You can download a free version of this program from www.adobe.com.

The Power of Place: How historic sites can engage citizens in human rights issues

bharris — Fri, 25 May 2007 20:08:18 -0500

The Power of Place

by Liz Sevcenko

Download full notebook in English and Spanish and a brief summary in Russian and Armenian below.[*note]

Read an interview with the author
See Phillipe Duhamel's creative take on this resource at interTactica!

In this notebook the author describes how human rights activists as well as the museum community can make more effective use of the spacial impact of historic sites to help educate people about social change and human rights. The Tenement Museum in New York City has joined with more than a dozen other institutions that have focused their attention on "sites of conscience"–places where terrible human rights abuse has occurred that should never be forgotten. Their goal is not only to remember the past, but also to use the emotional power of these places to catalyze critical thinking about the ongoing social issues of today, through dialogue and educational activities.

Around the world, people instinctively turn to places of memory to come to terms with the past and chart a course for the future. From makeshift roadside memorials to official commemorations, millions of people around the world gather at places of memory looking for healing, reconciliation and insight on how to move forward. Memory is a critical language and terrain of human rights. It’s here, through the process of preserving the past, that evidence of human rights violations is maintained and made public, issues this evidence raises are debated and tactics for preventing it from happening again are developed. In short, these places can be critical tools for building a lasting culture of human rights. Our project is to take a fundamental human instinct and develop it as an identifiable, self-conscious tactic in the service of human rights and social justice.

The Lower East Side Tenement Museum preserves a five-story building at 97 Orchard Street, home to over 7,000 immigrants from more than 20 different nations from 1863 to 1935. The Museum restores the tiny apartments of the diverse immigrant families who lived there and tells the stories of their daily challenges and triumphs in America. The human rights issues they faced – labor exploitation, racial and ethnic discrimination, poverty and immigration restrictions – are very much alive today. Located in a neighborhood that is today nearly 40 percent foreign-born, the Museum hosts public dialogues on immigration, welfare, housing, cultural identity and other related issues; teaches English and activism to new immigrants; and promotes immigrant voices and issues through changing arts programs. The Museum believes that historic sites can be powerful catalysts for public awareness and action on human rights issues.

To promote this idea the Museum initiated the International Coalition of Historic Site Museums of Conscience. The Coalition was founded in 1999 when the Tenement Museum brought together leaders of nine historic sites from around the world: the District Six Museum (South Africa); Gulag Museum (Russia); Liberation War Museum (Bangladesh); Lower East Side Tenement Museum (USA); Maison des Esclaves (Senegal); Memoria Abierta (Argentina); National Civil Rights Museum (USA); Terezín Memorial (Czech Republic); Women’s Rights National Historical Park (USA); and the Workhouse (United Kingdom). The group pledged to work together to develop effective strategies for activatingour places of memory as centers for dialogue on contemporary issues.

Our goal is to transform historic site museums from places of passive learning to places of active citizen engagement. We seek to use the history of what happened at our sites – whether it was a genocide, a violation of civil rights, or a triumph of democracy – as the foundation for dialogue about how and where these issues are alive today and about what can be done to address them. We define sites of conscience as initiatives that:

Interpret history through sites;
Engage in programs that stimulate dialogue on pressing social issues and promote humanitarian and democratic values; and
Share opportunities for public involvement in issues raised at the site.

The Coalition conducts program development workshops, staff exchanges and web-based resource exchanges. We also collaborate with leading human rights organizations to link our histories with currentcampaigns and inspire citizen participation in current struggles for truth and justice. The Coalition is currently coordinated at the Lower East Side Tenement Museum.

Read an interview with the author
See Phillipe Duhamel's creative take on this resource at interTactica!

*Note: You need Adobe Acrobat Reader to open the files marked with an asterisk (*). You can download a free version of this program from www.adobe.com.

Sending Out an SMS: A rapid-response mobile phone network engages a youth constituency to stop torture fast

bharris — Fri, 25 May 2007 20:08:14 -0500

Sending Out an SMS

by Anneke Bosman

Download full notebook below. [*note]

Amnesty International-Netherlands recognized the power of text-messaging technology (also known as short-messaging service, or SMS) to attract new members, build awareness of the campaign against torture and engage new people in quickly responding to cases of torture through Urgent Action appeals. The initial result was 520 new members gained directly from SMS participation with over 5,000 additional people becoming active in the SMS urgent action campaign. This notebook puts special emphasis on how Amnesty took advantage of SMS technology to build a new constituency among young people.

Golden Misabiko, a journalist in the Democratic Republic of Congo, was arrested and imprisoned without any charge in January 2001. It was feared he would be tortured. Amnesty International sent out an Urgent Action to members all over the world. We, at the Dutch section, sent out a text message to 8,000 cell-phone users in the Netherlands who participate in our new text-message alert network. Within 48 hours we sent a protest fax with thousands of signatures to the authorities in the DRC. Golden was released in May 2001. He had not been tortured. Golden wrote to Amnesty, "When I heard in prison that Amnesty campaigned for my release I knew: Je vais sortir (I will be released)." And so it happened.

Amnesty International has found a new "weapon" to use in its battle against torture: cell-phone text messages. These messages of up to 160 characters and transmitted by cell phone are known in many countries by the acronym SMS, which stands for "short-messaging service." With these messages, protests can be gathered faster than ever, enabling Amnesty International to take action against torture and other abuses more quickly. About 39 percent of the cell-phone campaigns conducted by Amnesty in 2002 were successful. Prisoners of conscience were released, people who had "disappeared" were found and death sentences were not carried out.

Cell-phone campaigning also has a special appeal for youth, and we found this campaign attracted new younger members into Amnesty in a way that other outreach and activities had not. Young people are the most frequent and numerous cell-phone users, and it is young people that Amnesty wants to reach. Young people do want to campaign for causes they believe in, but like anyone else, they prefer to do so in a way that is consistent with their lifestyles and habits. By using this popular tool of youth culture, Amnesty draws in new activists who will add to its campaigning power for a long time to come.

In this tactical notebook I will describe how we developed this text-message alert network in the Netherlands and how it helped attract a new constituency of support. To understand this alert method, one must also understand Amnesty’s previous methods to involve its membership in responding to human rights abuse around the world. All Amnesty campaigns have a dual function. They direct a focused response to a place in the world where someone needs help, using simple actions that large numbers of people can participate in and know they are making a difference. At the same time, these campaigns educate the public and build a global consciousness about human rights abuses such as torture. The text-messaging campaign adds something new to both objectives. It can generate a faster response to help the victim, while at the same time expanding Amnesty’s educational impact to a new constituency.

*Note: You need Adobe Acrobat Reader to open the files marked with an asterisk (*). You can download a free version of this program from www.adobe.com.

Recipe for Dialogue

bharris — Fri, 25 May 2007 20:08:12 -0500

Recipe for Dialogue

by Jo Render

Download full notebook below. [*note]

In this notebook, Jo Render describes a corporate training initiative that helps the private sector to build more effective, constructive relationships with Indigenous peoples. The process was developed through a collaboration between the NGO Business for Social Responsibility and First Peoples Worldwide, an Indigenous advocacy organization. The trainings, which are focused on extractive companies (mining, oil, gas and logging) are founded on respect for Indigenous peoples’ rights, aspirations and effective participation in the development process.

In December 2001, the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights convened a workshop on "Indigenous Peoples, Private Sector Natural Resource, Energy and Mining Companies and Human Rights." The physical format of this workshop was indicative of the general atmosphere surrounding the issue: Indigenous representatives were lined up on one side of the room, companies were lined up along the other, and nongovernmental organizations sat in the middle. Governments chose not to attend. Toward the end of two days of very tense discussions, a representative from Rio Tinto (a U.K.- based mining company) asked a question of the Indigenous and NGO participants: rather than spend more time repeating everything that companies do wrong, can we (the communities and NGOs) provide more explicit direction to companies on how to do things right?

This challenge was accepted by First Peoples Worldwide and Business for Social Responsibility, two U.S.-based NGOs working internationally on corporate responsibility. Together we developed a training initiative designed as one step in increasing the capacity of companies to build more effective, constructive relationships with Indigenous peoples. The training, which is focused on extractive companies (mining, oil, gas and logging), is founded on a respect for Indigenous peoples’ rights, aspirations and effective participation in the decisions that affect them. Both Indigenous people and company personnel have been involved in the design and implementation of the curriculum. At the core of the training is the concept of free, prior and informed consent (see box, right).

While many governments refuse to acknowledge that Indigenous peoples have this right (the right to approve, or reject, a project in their territory), it has been recognized in international law, and national governments are slowly coming around. Laws are rarely specific enough, however, to tell a company what kinds of actions and decision-making processes will meet this expectation. They also neglect to provide an overview of everything at the community-operational level that can affect how communities and companies achieve consent. Our training currently takes the form of a two-and-ahalf-day workshop that provides broad, general guidance on the importance of developing good engagement practices with Indigenous peoples in order to achieve free, prior and informed consent. While we do not guarantee that effective engagement will result in consent, we emphasize that without it, consent cannot be achieved. Ideally, company participation in the training will include multiple voices representing the different company roles that affect, and are affected by, community relations, such as environmental management, land negotiations, government relations, executive offices, communications and investor relations.

The workshop content was tested in February 2003 and presented fully to a group of nine companies in March; a shorter version was tried in November. We were working to create interest in more in-depth training on community engagement techniques at the company site level, and, while we have received expressions of interest in this second step, specific programs have not yet been undertaken. Participants from the March workshop provided very positive feedback, but we do not yet know the level of our impact on the companies at the institutional level. As such, this paper is a description of a "tactic in progress."

*Note: You need Adobe Acrobat Reader to open the files marked with an asterisk (*). You can download a free version of this program from www.adobe.com.

Public Audiences

bharris — Fri, 25 May 2007 20:08:11 -0500

Public Audiences: Creating Space to Recognize Victims of Internal Conflict in Peru

By Sofia Macher, Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Peru

Download full notebook below. [*note]

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) of Peru is one of the most recent experiences of processes of transitional justice, institutionalized with the aim of exploring the truth hidden behind a past characterized by massive abuse of human rights. One of the central activities in this process is the Public Audiences, created with the aim of legitimizing and dignifying the personal experiences of the victims in order to support the therapeutic and recuperative work on their behalf.

The TRC was created by the President of the transitional government in June of 2001. It was made up of 12 commission members, all Peruvians, and duration of two years. It did not count on jurisdictional powers: its mandate was to document the grave violations of human rights committed during the twenty years (1980-2000) of the internal armed conflict. However, the Public Audiences were formal sessions in which a victim or family member of a victim would give an account of what had happened before a group of people that had the ethical authority stemming from the State to listen and express their solidarity and acknowledgement. Unlike other Truth Commissions, the purpose of these sessions was not for investigation, but instead an audience for the restitution of rights, of citizenship, and of dignity for the victim, an audience to listen in respectful silence, lending ears to and giving voice to those who had never before been given such things. All these people were assaulted by the State that had the obligation to protect them, and were later rejected by society. Many of them were displaced to other areas, condemned to fear, to silence that broke with the social support of their own communities. The Public Audiences are, so to speak, a step towards the restitution of this so necessary support. But the audiences also had an effect on society itself. Knowing a personal history, one that is parallel to the official history -- that until that moment everyone had believed and known -- had a much greater impact than the Commission’s final report could have ever had. Having heard hundreds of testimonies from different areas of the country, it put on the table the horror to which no Peruvian could feel unconnected.

This notebook shares the way in which the TRC in Peru implemented its Public Audiences in order to dignify the victims, contributing to the general recuperation of society. Certainly there are similarities with other processes and experiences (South Africa or Nigeria, for example), but there are also new aspects that are important since a new format was created that permitted Peru to begin a process of laying the foundations to generate change in the interior of the State, and also in society itself. The lessons of this experience can be useful for any focused process, more so in reconstructing the psychosocial fabric of the people and the victimized society, than in blaming the perpetrators. It is also helpful here to emphasize the effort of the International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ) to support these learning processes.

*Note: You need Adobe Acrobat Reader to open the files marked with an asterisk (*). You can download a free version of this program from www.adobe.com.

Rebuilding Communities

bharris — Fri, 25 May 2007 20:08:11 -0500

Rebuilding Communities

by Binta Barry and Nancy L. Pearson

Download full notebook below. [*note]

In this notebook, we learn about building local and long-term capacity building within communities to address massive human rights atrocities. The Center for Victims of Torture has instituted an intensive training and supervision model for refugees to develop local capacity for providing understanding and skills for mental health support to rebuild communities after massive human rights atrocities. CVT has instituted the training model in refugee camps in Guinea and Sierra Leone for refugees from Sierra Leone and Liberia. The model combines intensive, hands-on training of refugees with ongoing supervision. These refugee "mental health specialists" build their capabilities, provide individual and group therapy for traumatized individuals and use their skills toward rebuilding their own communities and support systems.

There are currently 122 "mental health specialists" involved in this ongoing training and supervision model with thousands of refugees of all ages having received a wide variety of services. Devastating wars in every region of world have created massive number of refugees and internally displaced people who have witnessed or been victims of horrible human rights atrocities. This notebook may provide tactical ideas to those assisting these communities trying to rebuild their lives.

Even as the world has witnessed substantial gains in the development of international mechanisms to monitor human rights violations and prosecute offenders, mass atrocities continue to plague many countries, including Sierra Leone. The nation’s people endured more than a decade of civil war, suffering brutality and massive rights violations aimed at ripping apart the social fabric, undermining cultural and family values and destroying community leadership and structures. Sierra Leone, a country of approximately six million people, is composed of 20 tribes following a variety of faiths–Muslim, indigenous and Christian. The country gained independence from Great Britain in 1961. Despite rich mineral and human resources, by 1990 Sierra Leone had one of the most skewed income distributions, with 82 percent of the population living below the poverty line. An eleven-year civil war provoked in 1991 by the Revolutionary United Front resulted in tens of thousands of deaths and the displacement of over one-third of the population.

The conflict caused more than 450,000 people to flee to neighboring countries–mainly Guinea and Liberia–and left an estimated one million people internally displaced within the country. With the RUF conducting systematic and brutal assaults on the civilian population, survivors had witnessed or survived brutal atrocities including mutilations, amputations, forced recruitment of children and adults as soldiers, forced labor and horrendous sexual crimes. International observers described the situation: "The rebels sought to dominate women and their communities by deliberately undermining cultural values and community relationships, destroying the ties that hold society together. Child combatants raped women who were old enough to be their grandmothers, rebels raped pregnant and breastfeeding mothers and fathers were forced to watch their daughters being raped." Girls as young as seven or eight were used as sex slaves.

At the time the Center for Victims of Torture was launching its program in Guinea, there were more than 300,000 Sierra Leonean refugees and more than 120,000 Liberian refugees in the country. Conservatively estimating that 5 to 10 percent of the refugee population could benefit from mental health interventions and needed more than social opportunities or skills training to regain their life functioning, 20,000 to 40,000 people were in need of such assistance. Sierra Leonean communities were broken apart by the atrocities of the war. And many of the individuals who endured and survived such atrocities remembered their experiences in silence.

*Note: You need Adobe Acrobat Reader to open the files marked with an asterisk (*). You can download a free version of this program from www.adobe.com.

Powerful Persuasion

bharris — Fri, 25 May 2007 20:08:10 -0500

Powerful Persuasion

By Emile Short

Download full notebook below. [*note]

See Phillipe Duhamel's creative take on this resource at interTactica!

In this notebook, we learn about some of the most difficult human rights violations to eradicate–customary or traditional practices based on deep-seated beliefs, particularly those with a spiritual dimension. One such practice is the Trokosi, in Ghana, a system of servitude that meets the community need for justice and the material and sexual needs of fetish priests. Women and young girls are brought and kept in fetish shrines to atone for sins or crimes allegedly committed by one of their relatives. The Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) recognized that legislation outlawing such practices may not be effective and may, in some cases, result in driving a customary practice further underground. Respected leaders–at local and national levels–engaged in direct dialogue with perpetrators, victims, other community leaders, and the community at large to facilitate understanding of the practice, while providing alternatives and avenues for abandoning the practice without losing status. There are many ways in which respected leaders can be enlisted to help community members understand the dynamics of customary or traditional practices, and to address the underlying complexities of such practices in order to transform or change those that violate basic human rights.

Some of the most difficult human rights violations to address are customary or traditional practices based on deep-seated beliefs of a community or people, particularly practices that have a spiritual dimension. In the Trokosi system in Ghana, women and virgin girls are taken without their consent to fetish shrines to atone for sins or alleged crimes committed by family members. They are forced to serve the shrine priests through manual labor, including farming and cooking, and are sexually exploited as well. The practice occurs mainly in remote areas of the Volta Region of Ghana, which is dominated by an ethnic group called the Ewes. Through a coalition effort involving the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ, a constitutional and statutory body), International Needs Ghana (ING, an NGO), the National Commission on Civic Education (another constitutional body), and the traditional leaders from the Ewe communities, we have succeeded in liberating thousands of young women and girls held in this bondage.

Our tactic is to mobilize the support of respected community leaders, such as chiefs, queen mothers, and local governmental officials, using them as resources in seminars and durbars2 on the human rights implications of the practice and recommending voluntary liberation of the victims. After these meetings, we enter direct negotiations with the shrine priests and elders, persuading them to voluntarily end the Trokosi practice. Because they speak the same language and hail from the same communities as the practitioners, the community leaders have played a crucial role in changing the mind-set, beliefs, and behavior of those involved in the human rights abuse. This approach is useful when dealing with cultural or traditional practices based on deeply entrenched beliefs, especially when the practice has a spiritual dimension and practitioners are reluctant to abolish it for fear of incurring the wrath of the gods. Experience combating female genital mutilation taught us that legislation prohibiting traditional and customary practices is ineffective if not preceded by intense public education programs.

In addition, human rights groups must engage in dialogue with practitioners, working to change their mindset and persuade them to voluntarily give up the abusive practice. It can be difficult, however, for human rights groups to achieve such engagement if they are perceived as "outsiders" by the traditional communities. Well-intentioned human rights efforts can easily be construed as an attack on people’s fundamental cultural and religious beliefs. Experience suggests that you cannot change deep-seated beliefs and practices by attacking them, nor can the law be enforced if there is no public cooperation. A different path must be found. We set out to convince practitioners and other stakeholders of the necessity of changing the Trokosi practice. We wanted the communities to see the practice for what it was: an abuse of human rights and an attack on the dignity and humanity of women in their own communities. We also wanted them to recognize that traditions are flexible and can be transformed over time, and that this practice could be changed without offending the gods. Unless we could achieve such an attitudinal change, legislation and enforcement could result in the practice being driven underground, and women and girls continuing to be trapped in this system of bondage.

ING provided support and oversight of the effort, setting up initial meetings with the Trokosi priests, shrine elders, and community chiefs, and arranging the seminars and durbars. I represented the CHRAJ, while the third key participant was Mama Adokua Asigble IV, Queen Mother from the Tefle traditional area and member of the National Commission on Civic Education. This process has taken more than a decade, and has involved a complex series of integrated steps: human rights advocacy and education in the various communities; negotiations with shrine priests and elders; and, for the freed Trokosi women, vocational skills training programs, emancipation ceremonies, and counseling and rehabilitation support. In this notebook we focus on the crucial method of engaging with respected community leaders to gain access, conduct educational programs, negotiate with the shrines, and carry out the emancipation process. According to the estimates of our NGO partner, 3,000 Trokosi women and children have so far been liberated through these efforts. In 1998 we also secured the passage of the "Prohibition of customary servitude" law; this has helped give momentum to the process, despite the fact that no prosecutions have yet taken place under this law.

*Note: You need Adobe Acrobat Reader to open the files marked with an asterisk (*). You can download a free version of this program from www.adobe.com.

I'll Walk Beside You

bharris — Fri, 25 May 2007 20:08:04 -0500

I’ll Walk Beside You

by Glenda Wildschut and Paul Haupt

Download full notebook below. [*note]

In this notebook Glenda Wildschut and Paul Haupt outline the victim accompaniment process for the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) that developed the concept of "briefers" to install a victim-friendly process. Victims were provided with the opportunity to testify and be supported before, during and after the process. The TRC selected briefers–chosen from the caring professions, such as ministers, social workers and nurses–from the community to provide this support. The briefers acted as volunteers and were trained to perform various tasks with regard to the entire structural process of the TRC. As a consequence of the sustained, supportive work of the briefers during the entire process, victims better understood their legal, emotional and practical position.

Thus, they felt they owned the process and were able to contribute in an important way by making recommendations about reparations. Briefers could be utilized in many settings–e.g. those involving domestic violence or rape, and tribunals court systems–where vulnerable victims need mediation and support to overcome traumatic experiences and especially in processes that involve perpetrators as well.

Between 1995 and 1998, 21,529 people gave statements to the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC).1 The thousands of hours of hearings were broadcast publicly and became the most watched programming in South African television history. Testifiers recounted the horrors of 34 years of apartheid and repression, bringing to light the contours of a national trauma, and the details of thousands of individuals’ suffering. Testifying publicly about one’s own personal trauma is itself a terribly difficult experience. The TRC committed itself to creating a process that was friendly and accommodating for victims. Part of this process was a program of "briefing" for people coming forth to testify. Thousands of people were accompanied before, during and after their testimony by volunteers trained in psychosocial support as well as in the legal and practical realities of the hearing process. The goal was to provide the necessary support to make the experience of testifying an empowering one that would help in the victim’s longer-term healing process, rather than contribute to renewed suffering.

The briefing process had positive effects on three different levels. On the individual level, it helped the testifiers overcome their apprehensions, avoid secondary trauma, process their painful past and move on with their lives. On a community level, it helped train community members to assist in the psychosocial healing process of the testifiers, while also bringing whole communities together to process and heal from their mutually shared past experiences. And finally, on a national level, the briefing helped the Truth Commission achieve its goal of creating a victim-friendly process that would promote national healing for a traumatised nation. On each of these levels, there are lessons to be learned that may be applicable in other contexts.

*Note: You need Adobe Acrobat Reader to open the files marked with an asterisk (*). You can download a free version of this program from www.adobe.com.

Complementary Strengths: Western Psychology and Traditional Healing

bharris — Fri, 25 May 2007 20:08:00 -0500

Complementary Strengths: Western Psychology and Traditional Healing

by Lucrecia Wamb

Download full notebook below. [*note]

In this notebook, we learn about efforts to integrate and maximize knowledge from traditional and western healing methods to reintegrate child soldiers into communities devastated by war. Rebuilding Hope saw the need for an integrated healing process that would allow families and communities to accept child soldiers back into their lives -- even those who had killed their relatives and burned down villages. Acknowledging that traditional healers are often the first people community members approach when they need help (healing), Rebuilding Hope psychologists approached the healers as well as other community leaders, such as teachers and tribal leaders, to be project partners. The creation of an integrated support system combining western psychology and the traditional healing processes enabled children to be reintegrated into their families and communities as purified people, while the psychologists developed sustainable mental and emotional support systems for them. Such reintegration issues are not unique to Mozambique. Other communities dealing with these complex issues of reintegration, whether of child solders or other populations, can find this tactic helpful in generating ideas toward accessing traditional forms of support and healing.

Mental health practices and interventions in developing countries and post-conflict situations are extremely challenging. A common misperception is that mental health support is the sole task of psychologists, social workers, medical doctors, counselors, and nurses–in other words, western-trained personnel. Our experience, however, shows how a community process of mental health assistance must constructively involve all levels of experience and knowledge in the society. In this tactical notebook, we will describe the reintegration of former child soldiers back into their communities, a process that brought about the collaboration of community leaders, Western-trained psychologists, and local curandieros (healers). All societies and cultures have developed, created, and learned mechanisms to deal with their specific problems in different spheres of life. If we seek to help a community to rebuild itself from trauma, our approach should first ask "how is this society or community already using its own resources to overcome or deal with the problem?"

To illustrate this, I will share with you the experience of a Mozambican nongovernmental organization, Reconstruindo a Esperança (RE, Rebuilding Hope) in working with children affected by military violence, particularly in rural communities. The work focused on providing psychological assistance and promoting community reintegration after 16 years of war, in the process using and reinforcing community resources. In this notebook we focus on Josina Machel Island, a rural community in Maputo province, 130 km from the city of Maputo. The island has 10,000 inhabitants, the majority of whom make a living from agriculture, fishing, livestock, and migratory labor (working in the Republic of South Africa). During the war an important military base was nearby. Many children were used as combatants, and many were sexually exploited.

Collective traumas, like war, are more than the sum of their individual effects. These traumas rip apart the social fabric, damaging the very foundations of social relations upon which mental health depends. Conventional psychotraumatology tends to focus on the individual’s experience, but in order to help individuals heal as community members who have lived a collective trauma, something more is needed. The process must involve the community and its indigenous social and spiritual support mechanisms. People define their identity in relation to their community and ancestors, and after trauma they must rebuild that identity with the community. In the cosmology of that community process, individualized Western psychology alone will not suffice. Rebuilding Hope created a uniquely collaborative process, based on mutual respect for both western and traditional disciplines of healing.

The process we built was as inclusive as possible, facilitating the empowerment of the community as a whole while still caring for the individual psychological needs of our clients. The project encouraged and depended upon the leadership and support of community religious leaders, local teachers, and parents. With the help of traditional local and religious leaders, we forged links with local curandieros. As a result of this collaboration, when those under our psychotherapeutic care felt they needed traditional purification rituals to wash away the bad spirits, we referred them to the curandeiros. Reciprocally, the traditional healers would purify their patients and send them to the psychologists for additional support. As a result, an integrated support system was created: through traditional healing processes, children were reintegrated into their families and communities as purified people, while the psychologists developed sustainability methods for mental and emotional well-being. The result was a symbiotic model of psychotherapeutic interventions, taking into account the local knowledge and culture.

During a period of eight years, Rebuilding Hope has worked with approximately 700 children. The lessons we can learn from this go beyond the reintegration of child soldiers. It is our hope that our experience will help people working in other contexts to effectively integrate into their approaches the local capacities, cultural concepts, and wisdom, catalytic tools that can be essential in rebuilding community mental health. The need for such cross-cultural integration of healing strategies will certainly be relevant elsewhere, not only in the African context–i.e. Angola, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Burundi, Rwanda, and Ivory Coast–but in other countries as well.

*Note: You need Adobe Acrobat Reader to open the files marked with an asterisk (*). You can download a free version of this program from www.adobe.com.