Services / International Work
In 2004, a team from Southern Community Welfare embarked on their first international trip, combining grief and trauma training with capital resourcing in the region of Myanmar. Previous connections gave us a fantastic opportunity to invest our resources internationally, in keeping with our policy on health and giving.
Grief & trauma management training to children’s workers in Myanmar (Burma) continued in 2005 and 2006. Our team has trained over 300 community & church leaders as well as children’s workers & carers. The feedback continues to remain very positive and continues to be reported as very valuable to the workers. These 300 workers influence the lives and care of more than ten thousand children.
In July 2007 a team visited Yangon to conduct a review and future planning for the project. This trip was very productive with the major achievement being a Memorandum Of Understanding. This cements a partnership with regards to running the Grief & Trauma Awareness Training. This enables better networking and profiling of the service making way for the training to be more accessible for a greater number of children’s workers. It is our priviledge to be able to information share, resource and support a country like Myanmar where there is much poverty not only of economics but also of knowledge. And we are able to give from what we have to support compassionate & effective care of children.
2010 formally finishes our Burma (Myanmar) project. We began this phase of our partnership with the Karen Baptist Convention (KBC) in 2006. Our aim was to deliver Grief and Trauma awareness training to children’s workers across Myanmar. Around 800 children’s workers have been trained over the three and a half year project, influencing the lives of thousands of children. As I have overseen the feedback from this project I am encouraged again and again to see indigenous children’s workers become more informed, compassionate and responsive to children’s struggles and symptoms of grief and trauma. Three sample reflections follow…….
“I am a teacher and I would like share my experiences with one of my children which I have involved. He has strange behaviors because of trauma. His family neglects him because they regard him as a "problem child". No one see him as a good boy, so he feels sorry for it so much. As a result, he doesn’t want to follow the rules of the school. As I have finished the grief and trauma management, I know his conditions and give him favors, comfort him with the words of God. So grief and trauma management training gives me a new insight to know about the strange behavior of people and also makes me to know how to handle and treat them.”
“I am a minister from Du Thu Htu, I have to travel from one place to another for gospel. I have to face with seven women who loose their husbands because of the conflicts. They get traumatised and they don’t want to communicate with others. On the one hand, they fail to reveal their bad feelings. So, they stay away from the community. As I have finished the training of Grief and Trauma Management, I comfort them with the knowledge of the grief and trauma management training and let them to reveal their bad feelings. Now, they could communicate with others, and God blesses them in order to get a job in plantation. I believe God will heal them all till they all are recovered.”
“I am a minister from Lu Bwael area, I get good opportunity to come and learn about the grief and trauma management training. I would like to share how God heals my family through His unchangeable words. One of my daughters gets a bad feeling in her mind and even she doesn’t want to talk with us. As a father, I am so angry with her and I tell my wife to let her to get out from our family. But now, through the grief and trauma management training, I come to realised my weakness and know her bad feeling and treats her kindly, now she is OK. Thank God so much for the training.”
The free tuition project is now in its second year, supporting 190 children with education, health, language, bible and housing assistance. This project was set up in partnership with local village Karen Baptist churches. The project engages church youth with higher education to run free tuition classes for village children. The project also recognises the poorest of families and gives them a small business loan to shift their poverty status in the long term and it also engages the local village nurse to provide medical care for the children when necessary.
Our indigenous coordinator of this project Hsa Ka Baw and his wife Nilar have had a baby girl this year, her name meaning ‘precious star’. As well as this and running the projects Hsa has finished a diploma in applied psychology which is a fantastic asset for his work and ministry.
As we are finishing up our partnerships with these projects in 2010, we have tried through 2009 to link them in with international mission organisations, which is rightly now where they belong. As a service we have applied much time and energy to this endeavour. To date we have not been successful to this regard. I know that these projects have blessed those that have been involved over the seven years of formal contact we have had with this country and in particular the Karen Baptist Convention. Many now have a much more informed response and compassionate stance towards children in their care. Over 25 people now have a working knowledge of basic trauma counselling and 190 children have been well supported to access education and experience an increased hope for their future. This free tuition project will continue under the support and guidance of other donors and I’m sure continue to grow.