Trauma Debriefing in Kyrgyzstan
Oasis Krgyzstan provides trauma debriefing for hundreds of children.
In the last edition of Newsround we told you about the political unrest in Kyrgyzstan. In June this year, ethnic violence in the south of the country left up to 2,000 people dead and many thousands injured. At least 500 businesses have been destroyed and thousands of houses burned.
Following the violence, the Government sent hundreds of children to the capital, before sending them for respite to children's camps in the north of the country.
The Oasis team contacted the schools and children's centres housing the children in the city. They also made contact with the Government to see how they could help, and as a consequence were asked to provide humanitarian aid and trauma debriefing for the children.
Within a week the team had translated their trauma debriefing material into Russian and Kyrgyz, found and trained five volunteers (teachers on holiday) and put together 600 debriefing packs for the children. In the following two weeks the team debriefed some 300 children and trained 20 educators to continue the debriefing during the camps in the north. The material was also translated into Uzbek for use in the south and 500 more debriefing packs were put together.
Speaking about the way the children responded to the trauma counselling, Thirza Schneider, the Oasis Director for Kyrgzstan says, "We found that the older children and teenagers were keen to talk about everything, while the younger ones just preferred to draw. All of them drew pretty horrendous pictures of tanks, fire, machine guns, soldiers and dead people. It was obvious that drawing, writing and talking about their experiences really helped them. Even the educators had tears in their eyes as we trained them and as they also shared about what they had seen and experienced. Truly these precious people in the South, of all ethnicities, are traumatized, scared and in shock."
The team has sent one of the volunteers to the south to train people in the use of the material, so that other children can be helped.