Introduction
This online introductory course on healing and peacebuilding is ideal for practitioners working in complex and fragile contexts in Africa and all those whose work is impacted by trauma. The course is inspired by the believe that there’s crucial need for efforts towards breaking cycles of violence. Recent studies show that trauma amongst peacebuilders themselves considerably compromises efforts for reconciling and rebuilding societies after violent conflict (Davis, 2019). Building long term sustainable peace therefore, must be sensitive to the presence of trauma in the communities in conflict as well as the trauma experienced by the very agents of peace.
In the broader Eastern and Horn of Africa regions, efforts towards sustainable peace continue to be undermined as warring groups continue to engage in series of raids and tit-for-tat attacks that have left thousands killed and hundreds of thousands displaced. Similarly, government efforts and humanitarian aid often does not address the historical trauma allowing it to be carried forward to the younger generation. Studies from various countries have shown that people exposed to traumatic experiences run a greater risk of poor life outcomes, including compromised physical health, risky behaviors like dropping out of school or substance abuse, poor economic self-sufficiency or poor parenting skills for the next generation (Lambourne, 2013). In short, individual and collective trauma is a driver of current violent conflicts including the structural violence that exist in organizations that ought to be transforming the conflict. Too often, organizations are a big source of distress for their staff instead of enabling these agents of peace to work at their best. And, it is also evident that stakeholders may exploit these traumas to incite contemporary violence.
About the Course
The course will explore with adult learners how trauma undermines peace building and development work. It will at the same time equip agents of peace with the tools and skills to enable them commence the healing journey within their communities and move towards sustainable peace.
Questions that this course will seek to answer:
(a) How do we address the individual, collective and historical trauma in conflict zones?
(b) How does healing and unhealed trauma intersect with concepts of truth, justice, peace and forgiveness?
(c) In what ways can governments complement and support community-based healing processes?
(d) How do we address our own personal biases, prejudices and pain as peace workers and peace builders?
(e) What practical ways are practitioners addressing their own biases (acquired trauma) and unhealed trauma, to ensure sustainable peace in the conflict transformation process?
Training Methodology
This course will be conducted online over a period of 5 days covering an accumulative 27.5 hours (5.5 hours per day). The training targets a small number of participants (maximum 12). The small number will enable the creation of space for each participant to (re)discover the power of their vulnerability as a pathway of rediscovering their inner healer so as to be more effective as community healers and peacebuilders.
The course will make use of a wide range of participatory adult learning models including inquiry, case study analysis, individual and group tasks and reflections from participants’ experiences. All learning will be focused on finding practical pathways towards healing in one’s individual context.
Course Content:
1. *Reviewing our Practice
This session will aim at uncovering the gaps/ the cracks that have hampered peacebuilders efforts in building sustainable peace. It will seek to explore the impact of unhealed trauma in peacebuilding and development work in specific contexts in Africa. Within the session, there will also be focus on how peacebuilders and development practitioners have amidst these challenges survived and developed resilience.
2. Self awareness
This session will seek to explore how we can objectively analyze our predispositions and how they affect our relations. It will enable us to be cognizant of our biases (personality, social economic status, gender, and state of mind) and objectively ask ourselves who am I? Who am I not?. The session will also focus on indigenous African Understanding of Self in Relation to Other, Nature, Creator, and the Universe. It will also help in exploring how we resolve conflict in groupings/relations and what informs these resolution styles? (Are there existing patterns in my Family (values); Ethnic group; (culture, gender); Religion?. And finally, it will seek to understand how the individual interacts with the nation/country in terms of patterns, governance, historical injustices, economic prowess, culture etc.
3. Understanding Cycles of Violence
This session will discuss the needs of the victims in a given conflict and the interests of the perpetrators while at the same time exploring practical ways of how to break free. There will be focus too on unraveling how cycles of violence look like in various contexts and how they can be broken as well as existing biases and how they can be mitigated. Participants will also have the opportunity to review what has worked in different contexts. Lastly, the session will seek to better understand collective trauma, internalized victimhood, oppressive cultural practices, oppressive governance system and historical injustices and how they all relate to trauma.
4. Healing
This session will be in two folds with the 1st fold focusing on individual healing including therapeutic practices we cultivate in our daily lives to foster healing and build resilience. The 2nd fold will explore healing in our context and in particular healing practices within the community that allow for group conceptualization of what the healing journey would entail including native approaches to the healing process, wellness practices, and healing rituals & routine.
5. Breaking Cycles of Violence: Healing in the Bigger Picture
This session will explore the use of the 3-legged cooking pot analogy to demonstrate how peace building, development work and healing are interdependent. Healing effectively reduces trauma, anger and revenge tendencies while at the same time building positive psychological resilience, social trust and tolerance. These outcomes have direct benefits for individuals and broader society in terms of increasing general psychosocial wellbeing, economic participation and social cohesion.
Profiles of the Trainers
1. Ms. Eugenia Mpande:
Eugenia is a psychosocial trauma professional, counselor and a mental health activist working in Zimbabwe. She has devoted much of her 20 years profession to extensive work with individuals (adults and children), families, community groups and members from civil society organizations who have lived both traumatic and trauma genic experiences. Over the years, she has developed trauma informed care programmes and materials for communities, volunteer facilitators and frontline workers
Eugenia is deeply committed to holistic, survivor-driven, and community owned trauma healing interventions that help to interrupt repetitive cycles of violence. She has specialist skills in transcultural mental health and highly experienced in communicating psychological concepts in a localized context for easy practical use by communities.
She has highly developed writing and critical skills which have seen her contributing to an article in the American Journal of Peace Psychology “Community Intervention During Ongoing Political Violence: What Is Possible? What Works?” She holds a Master of Social Sciences degree in Child and Family Studies (Specializing in Psychotherapy) with Africa University.
2. Ms. Winnie Orodi
Winnie is trauma informed psychologist and mental health practitioner in Kenya. In the last 5 years, Winnie has implemented trauma informed mental wellness practices in grassroots communities crippled by violent conflict. From this transformational involvement, she has garnered tools and skills for holistic healing informed by existing traditional practices in Africa. Her work has centered on gender, social justice and multicultural issues with a major focus on Trauma-Informed Practice.
She has facilitated for individuals and groups to understand how their environment, past and present, impacts their well-being and how they can find ways to break free from cycles of violence. She has worked in various settings including NGOs, and private practice and has held various roles including Mental Health Therapist, Community Advocate, Associate Counselor, and Advisor on Trauma-Informed Practice.
Winnie is an avid writer and has coauthored a psychosocial support manual for the National Police of Kenya, Muamko Mpya[1]* -Healing the Uniform*. The manual has been instrumental in providing police officers with tools for re-examining of traumatic events and support the development of trauma-informed skills to enhance mental wellbeing and resilience.
3. Dr. Babu Ayindo
Babu is a storyteller, teacher, facilitator, researcher and writer. For over two decades he has been involved the design and implementation of and peacebuilding programs and processes in various contexts. He has also designed and taught arts-based approaches to peacebuilding summer courses in 7 peacebuilding institutes in Africa, Asia, the Pacific and North America. To date, he continues to draw from Indigenous arts and practices in his community-based healing and peacebuilding work. He holds a B. Ed from Kenyatta University in Nairobi, Kenya and a MA in Peace and Conflict Studies from Eastern Mennonite University in the USA. In December 2017, has was awarded his PhD at the University of Otago (Aotearoa/New Zealand) for his thesis entitled Arts, Peacebuilding and Decolonization: A Comparative Study of Parihaka, Mindanao and Nairobi.
- Dr. Simon Fisher
Simon is a widely respected conflict transformation specialist and academic with extensive global experience. He is a facilitator, writer, educator and trainer who has worked in over 40 countries over the past 25 years. He has spent many years living and working in Africa, Europe, the Middle East and Asia supporting action for change. His background is in education and development, as well as conflict transformation, with governmental and non-governmental organizations.
In 1991 he founded Responding to Conflict (RTC), an internationally renowned education and training organization based in Birmingham, UK, which continues to train policy makers, academics and practitioners from all over the world. Simon has been an Honorary Research Fellow at the Department of Peace Studies, University of Bradford and holds a PhD from Oxford Brookes University, where he currently lectures in the Centre for Development and Emergency Practice (CENDEP). He also teaches at universities in Zimbabwe and Cambodia. His focus is always on helping people think about change within and without, both individual and organizational.
How to register:
Filled in application forms should be sent to COPA by email. All received applications will be acknowledged and if successful a corresponding letter of admission and other necessary documentations will be sent to the applicant. Please send your completed application to any of the following emails:
- copa@copafrica.org
- trainings@copafrica.org
- copafricatrainings@gmail.com