Trauma Healing Training, Iraq
Character Development, Iraq
June 18, 2018
Community Based Rehabilitation, Tajikistan
June 18, 2018The majority of the refugees and internally displaced people that Operation Mercy works with in Northern Iraq have experienced trauma due to war and displacement or other events. Unprocessed trauma can have a very negative effect on their lives and the lives of their families and communities. Inability to deal with their own trauma as well as the trauma of others strongly affect the mental health of our beneficiaries as well as our own employees.
Operation Mercy offers a trauma healing course over the course of 5 days for locals in order to build their capacity to process trauma and relate to traumatized people. Trainings are conducted with groups of men and women from various backgrounds: Yezidis, Muslims, and Christians. The goals of this training are two-fold. The first goal is to help the locals find their own personal healing from the traumas they have faced, as many of them are refugees and internally displaced people. The second goal is to equip them in their work as they help others who have been through trauma.
The training covers issues such as domestic abuse, rape, children, self-care, but the emphasis is put largely on the following questions:
- Why do we suffer?
- How can the wounds of our hearts be healed?
- What happens when someone is grieving?
- How do we respond and deal with pain?
- How can we forgive others?
Operation Mercy plans to continue to offer this trauma healing course to traumatized groups of men and women in Iraq.
