working with traumatized people - report of an evening 'learning from the south' in Hamburg

Wed May 21 04:07:05 PDT 2003

Dear Raffi and whoever else is interested

First of all I hope your 4 hour os with the Chechen refugee women went well.

Here are some of my notes from the evening with the african ladies, experts
with traumatized people (both of whom know os; Marjorie also appreciates
curanderismo...)

Topics they spoke about:
Marjorie (she's coordinator for gender trainings at All Africa Women for
Peace (AAWP), Pretoria, South Africa. AAWP is contact and network for women
working on conflict resolution):
- women saw their chance in reshaping civil society and the liberation
movement put racist and sexist behaviour on the same level. 72 women's
organisations formed a coalition to speak with one voice and after elections
26% women entered parliament. Thus the new constitution includes a couple of
good laws and legislations to support gender mainstreaming. A lot to do
still...  especially on the political level women are the ones who opt for
nonviolent solutions...
-  post-conflict societies have a huge rise of gender violence.... one in
three women (including 11-12 year olds) is a rape victim..   an area worked
on is involving men especially so that they deal with their own violence.
- how to break the circle of violence, also intergenerationally: story
telling as a means of healing as well as art & crafts.

Bonny (she is trainer and head of INSERE, a camerun-based organisation for
developent cooperation, supporting the peace process in Ruanda):
- entrepreneurship - and the problems of implementing behaviours. Programmes
for changing behaviours were thought of, including cultural techniques,
storytelling, proverbs. Analysis (strength/weaknesses) with women found out:
before women can enter economic activities a lot of trauma and conflict
needs to be dealt with and managed. They've developed tools...  Discussions
showed that (financial) aid programmes produced dependency and lack of self
organisation. Programmes for economic development (1997) came too early
because people had experienced too much trauma. The best help: talking.  In
the meantime the alternatively developed programme allows the combined work
on gender issues, business, conflict management. There is cultural transfer
possible with that and quality control exists. A very important issue is
building trustful relationships.

more on the practical side and examples from both M & B:
- (B) no specialists needed, two ears are often enough! People learn to help
themselves.
- (M) Listening, especially in groups is very useful. Integration of the
offenders is an aim, so they are involved as well.
- (M) only guideline: keep on telling your story but take it one step
further every time. Smallest steps are steps already, like admitting to have
experienced/done terrible things - without further details.
- (B) draw images (i.e. ship, pot, mountain etc) whatever comes to mind in a
group and then select one of your choice to tell your story to, if you can't
tell it to a person yet. Later you might want to tell the group what you've
told your object of trust... if not, fine too.  Minimum time for such a
workshop: 5 days. Emotional themes can't be dealt with in 1-2 days... at the
end of the days there is so much trust that you can talk about things you
could never talk about before... others might want to stop earlier...
- (M) has less time, just an evening of trust building: people are asked to
paint 'what did you do'/'what did you fail to do' and share the results in
small groups. The next day people create a symbol made of clay for what a
changed situation could look like.
-(B) people in Ruanda are used to sing and drum. In a drum put upside down
the traumas get collected. Then people take turns to play that drum in such
a way that they express their connected feelings to that trauma....
- (B) every step of the programme is connected to the theme and stage that
is worked on. No theorization, no concepts, but collected representatives
(i.e. write down words, make paintings, use body language and anything else
that appears useful) are the result of the group to that theme in that stage
- (B) reestablishing interpersonal trust - most important

Q & A
- when asked whether this is difficult, Bonny said, working in Ruanda for 3
month is like working in Kamerun for a year ...
- (M) identity is the key word, not ideologies. This enables especially
women to stand up for themselves
- (M) community building suffers a backlash now, for the 'commission of
truth' pushed forward too early. They weren't  listening to the stories of
the victims

END of report

Since this is only from my notes any statements made should be checked with
their origins, Marjorie or Bonny (her first language is french).
Here are their contacts:

Marjorie:   mrjobson at lantic.net
Bonny:  bdikongue at yahoo.fr  or  insera at yahoo.fr

I leave it all uncommented
with kind regards, Ilse

--

Ilse Debler-Grant
Hamburg, Germany
mailto: ilse.debler at t-online.de

----- Original Message -----
From: "Raffi Aftandelian" <raffi at pochtamt.ru>
To: <OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU>
Sent: Thursday, May 15, 2003 6:27 PM
Subject: upcoming OS with Chechen refugee women

> Hi listers!
>
> Thanks for your interest and support in this upcoming 4 hour OS with
> Chechen refugee women. The longer I am here, the more I learn to let
> go of the way I would like to see things organized and done.
>
> Birgitt, I think the point you are making about getting permission
> from the women to conduct an OS is a very important one, one that gets a
little sticky
> because Chechen culture (like probably all Caucasian cultures) is one
> that highly values guests and goes VERY far (from a Western point
> of view) to be hospitable towards them. Your small question had me
> check and I clarified that while initially they were polite towards me
> as a guest, they later understood my role and what I was offering to
> them.
>
> I recognize that I have lots of learning to do in using OS and in
> facilitation in general (much in the quality of presence department),
> but my guess is something is working. I think that if the women stay
> for the full 4 hours, that might be considered a success. Live and
> see!
>
> best,
> raffi
>
> *
> *
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>From  Wed May 21 09:41:37 2003
Message-Id: <WED.21.MAY.2003.094137.0400.>
Date: Wed, 21 May 2003 09:41:37 -0400
Reply-To: john at theexperiment.info
To: OSLIST <OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU>
From: john engle <englejohn at hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: 4-hour OS with Chechen refugee women
X-To: raffi at pochtamt.ru
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1; format=flowed

dear raffi,

thank you for sharing your report. i also really appreciate the report that
you shared, ilse.

my experience is, raffi, that while you will continue to receive suggestions
rich with insight from people on this list, the real morsels of gold you
need to keep moving forward are in the hands, minds and hearts of the women
you are working with. using open space philosophy: they will come up with
structure, practices, time frame that works for them. and it may not emerge
as quickly as you would like it to.

yesterday i had my weekly one hour 'session' with a group of boys ranging in
age from 10 to 15 who have spent years on the streets of port au prince.
they are scarred inside and out. they currently live in a shelter where
violence is still abundant and conditions are dreadful. at least its not the
street.

i have been spending one to one and a half hours together with them each
week for the last three months and, before that, occasional visits. for me,
its about holding space for them, trying to maintain a spirit of love and
grace, as i spend time with them. we read, discuss, etc. noise, chaos,
violence happens within our ears reach as we are together. i question myself
constantly, throughout my time with them and moments when i am not with them
and pondering my work with them. while i am with them, i focus on breathing
and on listening and speaking my heart.

i don't know where we are going exactly. there is no path that i am pushing
them down. i just know that i believe in the process of accompanying them. i
have enough experience with kids who grew up on the streets to know that the
'success' stories are rare. it seems important for my journey to be at least
somewhat aware of theirs.

i don't know if this is helpful, raffi. in summary, my sense is that there
are no formulas except for that of accompaniment, listening... support the
women in their ideas and inititiatives as they emerge.

john

My website: http://theexperiment.info

Open Space Institute (USA): http://openspaceworld.org

Join on-line conversations about Open Space:
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>From: Raffi Aftandelian <raffi at pochtamt.ru>
>Reply-To: Raffi Aftandelian <raffi at pochtamt.ru>
>To: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
>Subject: 4-hour OS with Chechen refugee women
>Date: Wed, 21 May 2003 11:37:05 +0400
>
>Dear listers,
>
>Happy to report that the 4-hour OS with Chechen refugee women living
>at MTF-6 (Dairy Farm #6) took place yesterday. Indeed, they live in a
>converted barn. They personally cleaned out the barn when they came in
>1999-2000 to flee the horrors of the second war in Chechnya. Still,
>these are very unhygienic conditions to live in. Some children have
>died of measles there. One mother of ten (!) children has been especially
>enterprising, built a wood oven so that when the gas is turned off
>(either because it is not available or as a measure by the authorities
>to pressure refugees to return back to Chechnya so that we all can
>pretend that the situation in Chechnya has "normalized) it is
>available to bake bread and the like.
>
>The OS took place in a youth drop-in center at MTF a thin wood structure
>built quickly by CARE. Wood patterned linoleum floor, we sat on
>plastic stools, heat up water in a huge kettle. The 10-13 women who
>came attend a psychological support group run by a local nonprofit,
>Agency for Rehabilitation and Development (ARD). ARD cut its teeth on
>psychosocial rehab in the first Chechen war (they were established in
>1995). The current group of women the two psychologists (Madina and
>Toma) from this camp work with are a lot more active than other
>groups. Still, they have lost so much of their dignity and ability to
>see (at first) that change comes from themselves.
>
>The theme of the OS was Recovering our families' health. There were
>three themes:
>
>-the psychological atmosphere in families
>
>-lonely women (divorced, abandoned, widowed)
>
>- the relationship between parents and children in families (much about the
>aggressiveness of youth and their until recently unheard-of disrespect
>of elders)
>
>It helped to have the psychologists re-explain the opening in Chechen
>(I had worked with the psychologists -- not just the women--
>beforehand extensively).
>
>It was a very modest start, but in the closing (we ended about an hour
>early) people noted what I would call an opening in their heart, no
>problems as such were resolved, few new ideas were expressed, but
>still this meeting brought a shift, however subtle. I would call it a
>Breema for the soul.
>
>In debriefing the OS with the sponsors, Toma and Madina, they saw that
>it might be worthwhile to continue this work with ARD psychologists.
>ARD psychologists are meeting soon to develop a set of principles and
>guidelines on doing family counseling in the tent camps and in
>Chechnya. They had planned to commit a day to this meeting.
>
>My question-- can a day be enough to develop these principles and
>guidelines (i.e. to have a plan of action)? How might OS be used here
>if there isn't the requisite 1 1/2 min. days to meet in OS and then do
>prioritizing and action planning?
>
>Thanks OS'ers all over,
>Raffi AFtandelian
>
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