wfn.org | Kenyon Joins CWS-EMU Tramu Recovery Seminar

["Natl Council of Churches/Church World Service News"]

CWS FEATURE STORY

5/6/02

If We Dont Have Champions of Peace, We Should be Prepared for Doom
Kenyan Makes His Mark at CWS - EMU Trauma Awareness & Recovery Seminar

By Chris Herlinger, Church World Service Emergency Response Program

HARRISONBURG, Va. - When Douglas Sidialo heard the news of the Sept. 11
attacks, he felt angry and mournful - but also empathetic.  I felt an
instant sense of identity, said the Kenyan. I knew the Americans were our
brothers.

That sentiment was not merely due to a sense of compassion or solidarity:
Sidialo was himself blinded as the result of the Aug. 7, 1998, bombing at
the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya. The terrorist bombing there and at the
U.S. embassy in Tanzania killed 231 people.

A former marketing executive for Yahama, Sidialo was running an errand to
the bank when the bomb went off, which not only caused the causalities and
injuries -- a companion driving with Sidialo was among those killed -- but
also destroyed nearby buildings and damaged the embassy compound.

Sidialo, 32, has since become a leader of survivors of the Kenya disaster,
so it was fitting that he should be a participant in the second trauma and
recovery jointly sponsored by the Church World Service (CWS) Emergency
Response Program and the Conflict Transformation Program of Eastern
Mennonite University (EMU).
Church World Service is a ministry of the 36 member communions of the
National Council of Churches.  CWS supports emergency response, development
and refugee assistance work in more than 80 countries, including the United
States.
The Seminars on Trauma Awareness & Recovery (STAR) are being held at the EMU
campus in Harrisonburg and build upon the work of CWS's Interfaith Trauma
Response Trainings held in the New York City and Washington, D.C., areas
since Sept. 11.

The focus of the two-year STAR training program is to equip religious
leaders in New York, Washington and other cities with the tools needed to
deal with the ongoing trauma caused by the events of Sept. 11. The STAR
curriculum focuses on trauma and healing as well as an introduction to broad
justice, security and peace-building issues.

In addition, the program has a strong international component, and Sidialos
presence at the second training - held March 18-22, 2002 - was a potent and
concrete reminder that the terror now known in the United States is an
international experience, said Carolyn Yoder, who is coordinating the STAR
program.

His presence in the group was a powerful reminder that others have also
suffered - and continue to suffer, Yoder said, noting that the Kenyan
survivors of the embassy bombing have received little monetary compensation.
The loss of Sidialos job has been a severe economic blow to his young
family, she said.

Yet, she said, Sidialo has an incredible attitude and spirit, taking his
blindness as a challenge and working with other survivors, traveling alone
internationally, speaking articulately about what happened to him.

But Sidialo does not just focus on his own experiences.  In his public
appearances, he makes clear that Americans and Kenyans have been brought
together by these events.

Its up to us in other countries to show our solidarity (with the United
States), he says.  A self-described ecumenical Roman Catholic, Sidialo
said he felt something akin to a body blow on Sept. 11 and wanted to travel
immediately to the United States. He was not able to immediately, though he
and other embassy bombing survivors and family members organized an
ecumenical memorial service in Nairobi that included participation by the
Anglican, Baptist and Methodist churches.

Sidialo, who had visited the United States in 2000 during an earlier CWS-
and EMU-sponsored program that brought together survivors of the Oklahoma
City and Kenya embassy bombings in both Oklahoma City and Nairobi, was
finally able to make the trip in March. After his arrival in the United
States and prior to the STAR seminar, Sidialo laid a wreath at the Pentagon
to honor the victims of the Sept. 11 disaster who were killed there.

Such gestures mean the world to Sidialo, a man who exudes both passion and
tranquility - or as fellow STAR participant Sandy Carles, a lay United
Methodist pastor in New York City, described him: someone with a vibrant
energy level, and loving presence.

He is, Carles said, a compassionate and insightful human being.  While
Sidialo and other Kenyan survivors and family members continue a long quest
for some compensation from the United States government for their injuries
and long-term recovery needs - they claim they were, in Sidialos words,
victims of circumstances - Sidialo made clear that his love for the United
States and its people is firm.

I am just happy and honored to be with America right now.  And so he was
during his time at EMU: speaking with reporters, meeting with members of a
local Harrisonburg church who had heard him speak the previous week and
spreading his message that the survivors and grieving relatives of the Sept.
11 disaster, the embassy bombing and the Oklahoma City bombing must come
together as a family.

Why is that important? Sidialo said his trip to Oklahoma City two years ago
was something of a turning point, recalling that the way he and other
Kenyans were received by their American hosts gave him much hope, in part
because the sharing of experiences proved to be so crucial in their
psychological recovery. Sidialo said reaching out to their American
counterparts is necessary because it is important for survivors to feel they
are not isolated in their anguish.

If they feel alone, their trauma will never end, he said.  For his own
recovery, Sidialo said his religious faith has sustained him.  Having
accepted his blindness and the need to move on, he has felt inspired to
share his belief that violence is not the way to respond to the type of acts
that robbed him of his sight.

If we dont have advocates - champions - of peace, we should be prepared
for doom, he said, calling war a short-term solution to seemingly
intractable problems.  I never thought this would happen to me, Sidialo
said of his experiences, but in fact, they have transformed me.

-end-

Contacts: Carol Fouke, 212-870-2252, or Chris Herlinger, 212-870-2068
E-mail: news@ncccusa.org or cherlinger@churchworldservice.org
Web: www.churchworldservice.org