From the Worldwide Faith News archives www.wfn.org


CWS TRAUMA COUNSELING SEMINAR IN LIBERIA


From "Ann Walle" <awalle@churchworldservice.org>
Date Mon, 22 Mar 2004 11:34:18 -0500

CONTACTS:

In the U.S.: 
Ann Walle/CWS/New York, 212 870 2654, e-mail:
awalle@churchworldeservice.org 

24/7, Jan Dragin, 781 925 1526, e-mail: jdragin@gis.net 
 
In Liberia: Ivan DeKam/CWS, cell phone: 554-824 (when calling from
within Liberia);
from outside Liberia, +377-47-554-824
or Benjamin Lartey, LCC: (from within Liberia) 517-879

MEDIA ADVISORY

LIBERIAN INTERFAITH, GOVERNMENT, NGO LEADERS TO PARTICIPATE IN
TRAUMA COUNSELING TRAINING SEMINAR

Trauma Healing as Conflict Prevention Initiative: Monrovia Event Is
Second in Church World Service Series for West African Community
Leaders

MONROVIA, LIBERIA - Sun 3/21-- Devastated by conflict, the nation of
Liberia is beginning the delicate work of securing peace,
reconstruction, recovery and reconciliation, while attending to cries
for justice- a cry some are concerned could accelerate into future
recriminations.

But global humanitarian agency Church World Service (CWS) is teaming up
with Liberian interfaith leaders to help avert future violence, by
forging trauma counseling into a conflict prevention tool for the
region.

This week, Monday March 22 - Tuesday March 30, Church World Service
will conduct its first Seminars in Trauma Awareness and Recovery (STAR)
to be held in Liberia. 

The Liberia STAR seminar, scheduled at the Pastoral Retreat Center in
Monrovia, is co-hosted by the Liberian Council of Churches (LCC), is
attracting participants from interfaith, civil society and government
sectors from across the country.

The seminars, which began in the U.S. following September 11, are a
joint project of CWS and the Conflict Transformation Program of Eastern
Mennonite University, Harrisburg, Virginia. 

According to LCC General Secretary Benjamin Lartey, "The Monrovia STAR
training will have nationwide representation. Participants represent all
15 counties in Liberia."

The Monrovia STAR training's 48 participants reflect Liberian men and
women from area Christian and Muslim organizations, non-governmental
organizations, colleges and civil society. Three representatives from
neighboring Guinea will also attend.

Some of the participants are pastors of churches. Some are NGO program
officers or professionals working with internally displaced persons or
ex-combatants.

The Monrovia event will be co-led by Barry Hart, EMU academic faculty
and CWS' Ivan DeKam and facilitated by John Chatting of the Nairobi
Peace Institute and Violette Nyirarakundu.

A first West African STAR Seminar was held in Freetown, Sierra Leone,
in January and was filled to capacity, with more applying than could be
accommodated after word got around about the seminar.

"We're gratified and honored to be able to share this learning
environment in Liberia," says CWS' DeKam. "We hope this will be an
occasion of  trauma recovery and an opportunity to build greater skills
for healing the wounds that Liberians have suffered for far too long."

Responding to the seminar's invitation, one Liberian church leader
said, "Everybody in Liberia is traumatized and without the healing
process within an individual, there will be no reconciliation and peace
in Liberia's communities and society," 

STAR seminars train church and community leaders who then carry the
skills learned in the seminar to their congregants and communities. The
program's curriculum focuses on healing trauma, an introduction to broad
justice, security and peace-building issues, and how resolving trauma
can promote restorative justice rather than retribution.

"You can't deal with trauma without dealing with justice," says CWS'
Ivan DeKam. "So we are not training people to treat trauma simply as
'critical incidence.'  

"We are talking about healing trauma as a process," he says,  "in a way
that can actually transform conflict resolution into conflict
prevention."

Healing the wounds of the Liberian heart is no small task. During a
visit to Monrovia earlier this month, one CWS representative reported
hearing sirens, then seeing Land Rovers go by with UN troops carrying
guns, followed by a shiny new Jeep. 

Curious, the humanitarian worker was told by his companion, "How do you
expect justice, peace and good neighborliness to be in Liberia if in the
whole town of Monrovia, you have many convoys like this everyday, and
the persons in this Jeep are former rebel leaders?" 

DeKam says the STAR seminars "offer participants a safe space to give
voice to and resolve their own traumas" and are intended to "train us
and our colleagues here in West Africa so they can go on and provide
trauma healing in a way that encourages the kind of restorative justice
that permits true reconciliation and supports sustainable peace."

Church World Service created the STAR trainings initially to respond to
trauma needs following the September 11 terrorist attacks in the U.S.
Responding to the same needs on a global level, the STAR seminar has
expanded and has hosted over 300 participants from the U.S. and
international participants from 38 countries

CWS Emergency Response Director Rick Augsburger says  "Our assessment
and research have resulted in this unique program which addresses the
resolution of trauma as a key component in achieving conflict
transformation in an effort to build a lasting peace."	 Recognizing
that anger and hatred are trauma's results, STAR trainings aim to
transform this cycle by promoting peace building at individual,
community and societal levels. 

In a September 11 tribute this year, CWS Executive Director Rev. John
L. McCullough announced a second $1 million grant to EMU to support both
STAR curriculum and scholarships. 

Prior to the January STAR training in Sierra Leone, CWS STAR seminars
had been conducted only in the U.S., at EMU's Virginia campus. But
Alimamy Koroma, Secretary General of the Inter-Religious Council of
Sierra Leone, encouraged exporting the program to the Mano River Union
as part of the church community's psychosocial and trauma work.

The Mano River Union countries of Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea are
focal points for Church World Service's new, multi-year Africa
Initiative. CWS was at the forefront of advocacy for the Liberian
people, urging greater attention by the U.S. government, the UN and
other international bodies, prior to the outbreak of last summer's
climactic conflicts culminating in the ouster of former Liberian
President Charles Taylor.

Church World Service is a humanitarian agency and cooperative ministry
of 36 Protestant, Orthodox and Anglican denominations, providing
sustainable self-help and development, disaster relief and refugee
assistance in partnership worldwide. 

							 ###

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