Network for Africa Counselling Training Programme in Patongo, northern Uganda.
Our volunteer counsellors Dr Barbara Bauer and Shelly Evans and Network for Africa staff, Sophie McCann and Louise Roland-Gosselin returned to Patongo for the third instalment of the trauma counselling training programme for two weeks in October – November 2009.
Network for Africa has projects in Rwanda, Northern Uganda and Eastern Chad. Our aim is to benefit all people in the communities where we work, regardless of race or religion. We work with small projects, started by local people responding to local needs. We help people rebuild their lives, supporting local groups with skilled volunteers, operational advice and resources.
CORD partnership programme: preliminary report on the counselling training in Chad
Network for Africa’s counselling programme aims to give Darfuri refugees living in Chadian refugee camps culturally specific and sensitive trauma counselling training and support.
Based on successful models in both Rwanda and Northern Uganda, Network for Africa’s programme in Chad is expected to run over a minimum period of 2 years and train lay members of the Darfuri community in post-trauma counselling with the long-term aim of creating a self-sustaining environment for peer counselling within the refugee camps.
Since the beginning of the Darfur crisis in 2003 during which time up to 400,000 Darfuris have been killed, a quarter of a million refugees have fled west into neighbouring Chad.
They live in squalid camps, traumatised by the violence they witnessed, scared of the Chadian authorities, and frustrated by their inability to return to their homes and their normal lives. Now that the Sudanese regime has expelled sixteen humanitarian groups, many more refugees are expected to pour across the border in search of food, water and safety.
Network For Africa started working in Northern Uganda in April 2008. We have just completed our third trip, and this is an update on our progress.
In summary, the business and enterprise hubs we established are flourishing. We previously trained groups of women in basic business skills and they have taken to the market economy with great enthusiasm, resourcefulness and ability.
Among other profit-making projects, they have established a bead making company. A happy by-product of making money together is the formation of close-knit women’s support groups, offering solidarity and friendship to those who previously felt isolated.
Network for Africa’s team of 4 psychologists worked in a town in northern Uganda called Patongo.
Their aim was to train lay members of the community in basic counselling skills. Patongo has been described as the worst part of the worst district in the most neglected area of Uganda.
A devastating twenty-year war has only recently ended and an extremely fragile peace is now in place. Yet thousands are deeply traumatised by the massive scale of murder, rape and abduction. During the war over two million people were forced to leave their farmland to live in squalid camps.
April 2010 Newsletter