Healing wounds

By Nilika de Silva

Havoc has been wreaked in their lives. Mothers losing their sons, wives their husbands, children estranged from parents and homeless families. Their only mistake being to be born at the wrong place, at the wrong time or to have built their lives, their dreams, on the outskirts of a war.

In the border villages work is being carried out by many voluntary organisations to ease the pain of those physically unhurt, yet scarred by the 17-year conflict that has ravaged this country.

Another step in this direction was taken last month when a training course for humanitarian assistance workers 'in response to the psychosocial needs of forced migrants', organised by the Federation of NGOs for Mental Health and Well-being, was held from April 24-28 at Wadduwa.

The idea of the workshop was born when Jeevan Thiyagarajah, Executive Director of the Consortium of Humanitarian Agencies met the team of trainers in England at the end of last year.

This team comprising Professor Alastair Ager, Maryanne Loughry, Amanda Webb-Johnson and Marilyn Deegan from Britain train humanitarian facilitators, to help ease the suffering of those whose lives have changed due to the war.

"There are thousands and thousands of displaced people in the border villages here," Malini Balasingam, President of the Federation of NGOs for Mental Health and Well-being and Programme Director, Communication Centre for Mental Health said.

"When there is a war, border villages shift from time to time. So these people are called forced migrants.As there are many NGOs working in these areas, the idea of the workshop was to get them all together," she said.

Representatives from Save the Children (UK), Survivors Associated, ZOA Refugee Care, Sarvodaya, FORUT Pre School Co-ord., ADIC, and Eastern Self Reliant Community Awakening Organization, were among those who attended the workshop.

One of the participants, S. Spiritheyon, from Batticaloa, said he works with 'unaccompanied' children and widows. "What I learnt at the workshop last month, was very useful. I joined the group working on communication. 'Unaccompanied' children are those who have lost both parents, and are living with foster parents.We conduct sessions of psychosocial counselling with their school principals and teachers.In March we had a session for 25 principals aimed at creating awareness among them regarding psychosocial counselling.

"We also had a living -in -session for the widows. Apart from the financial difficulties, these women have many other problems, especially with their adult children, who do not obey them now that their fathers are dead.We also help them to start small enterprises," he said.

Shanthi Arulampalam, Executive Director Survivors Associated, said they had planned a field officers and befrienders workshop in Trincomalee and would make use of the Community Participation modules they worked on during the workshop.

Another participant Chandanie Senadheera also stressed the importance of the insight she gained about Community Participation during the workshop. "Since my work relates to children it was very useful," she said.

This team from Britain had chosen Sri Lanka as a model country and were pleased with the inputs they got from here. "They will be holding similar workshops in other countries and this was the first in the series," Ms Balasingam said.

Speaking about the people in border villages she said the main objective of NGOs was to help these people overcome their psychosocial problems and it was important to understand what was meant by psychosocial intervention.

She said the workshop gave an insight into this area by touching on issues such as Children and Conflict, Gender Issues and the role of women.They also worked on the importance of communication in counselling, psychotherapy, and psycho-social interventions.

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