CARITAS, a non governmental Catholic organization, yesterday started an extensive trauma healing training at the organisation’s Howe Street office in Freetown.
Speaking about the Holy Rosary Sisters’ Truama Release and Healing Management (TRHM) the project coordinator, Sr. Elizabeth Onwuama, disclosed that the projected started since 2004 and that there was no funding but it still carried on by faith.
Sr. Onwuama said the trauma and healing first started in Catholic primary and secondary schools in Calaba Town as samples but that when this started they received “manner from heaven” when in 2006 the German CARITAS came to their rescue.
The Catholic sister further said, “the project is a school based project aimed at equipping the teachers about trauma healing and make them the first direct targets”.
She maintained that the project started with limitations to Catholic schools but later Muslim and government schools demanded for the project.
The second phase of the project, Sr. Onwuama said, was going to be with trauma deeply and that this would include violence since there were lots of violence among school children.
The third phase of the project, she went on, was to select few teachers and train them deeply in counseling.
The sister revealed that between 2006 and 2007, 394 teachers in 27 schools were trained and that from January 147 teachers in seven schools had been trained.
The project coordinator said though they were having funds from CARITAS Germany they were still faced with some difficulties which included mobility and facilitators.
In his statement Dr Hans Kurzweg, a representative from Caritas Germany giving reasons for their sponsorship to TRHM, said, “trauma healing is and remain a very important subject that is ongoing which we have to consider”.
He added that, “the project is well selected by targeting schools,” adding that they were strong partners for the implementation as the project was ongoing.
The Catholic Education Secretary, Rev. Fr. Moses Kailie, said must people were not engaged in trauma healing which was important in helping parents and children.
The church, he went on, had been existing for over two thousand years and that this was due to capacity building, “because capacity building is to build people and when people know what they do then they can move forward”.
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