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Community Counselling Cycle

What are we creating?

Well I've just returned home from what was a really good week back in Colombo, where we held a Psycho-Social Support (PSS) Workshop. After 2 years of Community trauma counselling there, the local team saw the need to continue supporting communities emotionally beyond the trauma of the tsunami but in general life issues.

There are so many reflections i could give but the thing i wanted to write about is an eternal question within development circles that came up a lot this week...On our first day we asked the group, what are your hopes for your community? And the response that hit me was.. "to change the receiving mentality of our community"...The sheer amount of money and material aid poured into the tsunami response has changed communities, and i would argue not in a healthy or sustainable way.

On the other hand, during our workshop we spent a couple of afternoons in IDP (Internally Displaced Person) camps just outside Colombo that had been hit by the tsunami and it must have been one of the poorest tsunami communities i've visited. My heart was really broken by the stories of a number of the families we chatted to. A young lady our group visited really impacted upon all of us. Her husband had recently gone to prison and now she lives in the camp with her son who is 3 and she is 5 months pregnant. She told of how her husband had never been in trouble before the tsunami but he had started hanging out with people that were not good for him since. She shared of how her son cries for food and the support of her neighbours who are now helping feed them. Compared to areas in the south i've been to previously such as Hikadduwa, this area seems to have recieved very little assistance at all in the last 2 1/2 years. The camp was at the back of a buddist temple and the houses were very simple and life there still very temporary.

So where do we find the balance between material assistance and remaining true to the belief that these communities do have capacity within to collectively change thier situation? Whilst the communities maybe not able to change the hard employment situation that they face, and the material aid, liveihood programs, mobile clinics that other areas have would all provide huge benefits to that community, there is also a lot they themselves can do to improve life there in the camp...But the later often takes a bit more time, and time journeying with people, to show them that they can infact bring about change themselves and hope for a better future.

Community Counselling - Pakistan

Claire Campbell and Alma Acub (team mates) went to Pakistan last week to do a Community Counselling Workshop in communities affected by the earthquake...Here is Claire on her experience there...

“I was working in the shop. After the earthquake I rushed home. On the way I saw a school where many children had died. There were community people pulling the bodiesof children out of the rubble. I could see that they were working hard. I went and got water for them to drink”. (In the Muslim faith it is considered an act of grace to give water to another person).


An initial exploratory visit invited by the Pakistan territory in December 06 had determined that the communities affected by the earthquake would benefit from a holistic response to their needs arising from the disaster. That is, a response that included physical, mental and emotional considerations. During the initial visit it had become clear that psychological and psychosocial influences were impeding the rate of recovery within communities.

Experience with the 04 tsunami had demonstrated that a community counselling approach whereby local people are supported and encouraged to counsel and be there for each other, as their greatest and sustained strength is an effective way to facilitate community and individual healing around psychosocial issues and influences all other areas of their lives.

Consequently, the Pakistan territory invited the regional team to return to conduct a workshop with community leaders in community counselling processes.

The week clearly demonstrated the principles of integrated mission - healing grace within every community and every heart whatever the faith background.

We included in our discussions the issue of faith. We were aware that this could be a sensitive issue among people particularly if being raised by people coming from a Christian organization. We firmly believed however, that faith is one of the key foundations of any community and is something that should be part of any discussion around community healing. We discussed with the Insan team (local NGO) before meeting with the community the best way to phrase and raise the faith issue for discussion. It turned out to be a pivotal point of discussions, with the participants happily talking about the strength their faith gave them, the way in which their faith inspired them to help others after the earthquake and how their faith continues to sustain them "God gave us strength, we must use it". The fact that we as facilitators were from a Christian background was not a hindrance and indeed appeared to be accepted and respected.

The experience demonstrated that when approached with sensitivity for local nuances, faith is a natural part of community life and discussion.

Hope...Where has it gone?

Do you need a new pair of glasses to find it?

This week a good friend of mine who has inspired me a lot recently in my quest to understand the situation of the Aborignal people here in Australia, sent me an article describing the living conditions of a community in Queensland. And even i was shocked at how strongly i reacted to it, not to the commuinty's situation, but to the way the article was written.

To quote:

"Driving in from the highway, there are glimpses of the coastline's rawbeauty from the pot-holed, corrugated dirt road. But there is little to findthat is beautiful in Yarrabah itself. It's the smell that hits you first — a pungent cocktail of decaying rubbish,damp and the ocean salt, which leaves chalky white splatters on the fewpossessions the people have. The houses are little more than tin sheds and each accommodates two,sometimes three, big families. It's a reality that means as many as 25people sharing each ramshackle space....

Teenage boys kick a football between makeshift goals between the trees. Thedream of playing professional rugby league might just take them away fromhere. A cluster of girls watch them but don't join in. For them, maybe thereis no point pretending...

Edgar Harris has lived in the area for more than 40 years. He doesn't askfor much. "I want my children not getting sick any more," he says. For him,election year budgets and the glossy promises of a bright indigenous futurefor Australia sound like many other promises made by politicians out toimpress voters."I just want a house," Edgar says. "But I don't think we'll ever get it."

This was my reply:

"My intial reaction to this article, probably not what you are expecting....but it is so easy to focus on the negative, and its quite a hard but important discipline to see the strengths in people and communities because it is the complete opposite to what society (and newspapers) tell us everyday. I personally think its time Australia starts looking for, AND SEEING, the strengths in the Indigenous people. To me, he paints a picture of a community just waiting for the government to give them houses. And call me crazy but I refuse to believe that is an accurate picture of the life of the people in that community. In the regional team work, we often find that it only takes a local team building relationships with the community and focusing on strengths to stimulate the community to act themselves. Check out http://ordinarybeautiful.blogspot.com/ and the entry titled "Future". The blog is written by a good friend of mine who lives in South Africa. You will see the difference i'm talking about. No doubt that situations can be completely horrible and just plain unfair, but its about seeing the hope admist the struggle...Does the story sound familiar?

As Christians I think we should know that better than anyone... and we should be living out our faith accordingly."

To share a personal story of my own: In January and Febuary this year, I was in London with my brother and his partner Debra whose kidneys suddenly failed in in November. While i was there, I spent a lot of time with Debra in hospital while she had dialysis and during that time there was so much uncertainty and anxiety about what her future held, whether the kidneys would recover, whether she could have a transplant or whether her condition would simply attack any new kidneys etc. Every Doctor that spoke to us would tell us a different opinion. One day in hospital a nurse came in and began talking to us, and when she realised that this was THE Debra that had got every doctor completely perplexed as to what to do, the nurse shared in a very compassionate way that they all just felt so sorry for her, such a sudden thing to happen to a young girl, they couldn't believe it....and I know this nurse meant very well, but Debra broke down. She didn't need someone else to make the negative even more concrete. On the opposite scale, people that would react and just focus purely on the positive, she would battle to show them that no, maybe it won't. God taught me a lot through Debra about the need for us to acknowledge the struggle and the suffering when we're journeying with people, yet also learning to discipline ourselves in looking for the positives, allowing ourselves to see the hope.

Do we know what the youth are really facing?

My mum came home from school today with a huge smile on her face. She started to tell me about the success of a workshop her school had hosted for the year 9 students run by Jim Stynes (an ex-Aussie Rules footballer) and his organization called ‘Reach’ (www.reach.com.au).

Starting her description of the day with “I have never seen 500 Year 9 students cry…and I was crying too”, I was thinking…sounds really fun! But then she described what sounded like an extraordinary, interactive, fun but liberating day where the kids were asked on a ‘call to adventure’, exploring who they are, their ‘ordinary lives’, the challenges they face, and ‘slaying the dragons’ to achieve their dreams.

One of the most amazing reflections of the day has got me thinking quite a bit tonight...so I thought I would share...

In one of the sessions, they asked the group of students from the 4 schools to nominate a person that is very loud, vocal and enjoys putting people down. The nominated kids came forward, and then based on the strongest cheer (ie support for ‘yes’ this kid is in fact the biggest bully), one of the kids was selected (already amazed?). But then they did a trust exercise where he climbed a ladder and the other kids nominated to catch him…asked how he felt, his response was…scared…perhaps like the kids that he bullies. Asked why he likes to bully the other kids and his response was to shrug his shoulders and smile simply saying it was fun. And I’m sure this doesn’t surprise you.

But then, he was asked ‘what is something that has moved you this year, really touched you’…and he started to tell about the loss of both his grandparents in a car accident this year and how he’d been very close to them.

After he shared his story, the audience was asked to put their hands up if they’d seen the boy tease or put down other kids - nearly all from his school raised their hand. Asked if they’d seen this ‘other’ softer side, and barely anyone moved.

So often I think we see the behavior and react before asking why?

The Reach team used the analogy of us all having an inner core, where the spirit of whom we are comes from, not in any religious sense, but it is where we feel our true selves. As life hits us with different challenges, we start to wrap layers around it to protect ourselves… Bullying and gang violence is a big issue here in Australia and it is very destructive. Similarly, youth around the region are facing similar struggles such as the loss of family due to HIV, domestic abuse, depression, suicide…and the list goes on.

If our sole response to the concerns of the youth is to organize events where we can wrap them up and protect them in our church walls…I think we are failing them. We are in denial if we think they don’t see the brokenness in the world or are too young to understand. We need to engage with the youth on what they are facing, strengthening them to make choices that are healthy for them and their future today…If today is a demonstration, the students expressed grief associated with loss of family members, in car accidents, to cancer, family break ups, bullying….so much about relationships. It will therefore be through relationship, we need to engage with them on the same issues they face at home, at school, on the streets…..

The challenge remains to us all...how do we 'engage' with the youth, or our peers, on these issues in our local community....any thoughts??