We brought skilled trauma care trainers from SIL to Dzaleka refugee camp to train church leaders. The impact continues as the participants continue offering trauma care to others up to this day.
Dzaleka Trauma Care Training
It is nothing short of traumatic to be forced to flee your home country due to war, violence, or political/social persecution and oppression. This trauma is compounded while living in a refugee camp or awaiting the processing of an asylum claim, as displaced people remain highly vulnerable and continue to live in a state of being uprooted and isolated. The whole person is impacted by the journey of forced displacement, and the whole person needs healing and care. Emotional wounds from traumatic experiences, grief, and the loss of place are things that need to be addressed in the lives of forcibly displaced people, families, and communities around the world.
The Opportunity
You can invest into the resiliency of our refugee friends through support of this project. If you have experience in trauma informed care, please don’t hesitate to contact us. We are always looking for new strategic partners to help us in this project. We are also looking for trauma care training materials that have been tested in refugee contexts or developed by forcibly displaced people. It is most helpful if these materials are available in multiple languages.
The Goal
This project fund serves multiple IAFR ministry locations. In each location our goal is to see communities of forcibly displaced people equipped to help one another identify, understand, and work through their trauma. We specifically aim to train key community and faith leaders in trauma awareness principles so that they can then train and equip others in contextualized and socially acceptable ways. This will give them a sense of peace and personal empowerment over their unresolved past while also helping reduce stress and tension in their families and communities.
The Strategy
While culturally acceptable ways of dealing with grief and trauma vary widely, we work to to equip communities of displaced people to better support each other. We work with them to develop contextualized, socially acceptable and effective models of care. While we use diverse resources and training curriculum, we have found Healing the Wounds of Trauma a helpful resource. Resilience varies from family to family and person to person, but even for those who struggle the most, resiliency can be strengthened.
The Progress
Current Training - Dzaleka IAFR is partnering with SIL and There Is Hope using the Healing the Wounds of Trauma curriculum to equip faith and community leaders, and elementary school teachers in Dzaleka Refugee Camp in trauma care principles. The first stage of this training happened in August 2019 and equipped participants with the skills needed to facilitate small ‘healing groups’ in the community. The second stage of the training took place in November 2021 (delayed due to COVID-19). More than 90 participants have completed at least the first phase of the training, and many are actively using the training in the community. We are planning the third and final phase of this training in Malawi in 2022. Previous Training - Kakuma IAFR partnered with the Humanitarian Disaster Institute in Kakuma refugee camp (Kenya) to equip 25 Christian leaders with Trauma Awareness and basic Trauma Care Training.
