15 juli 2015 - By Caitlin Cockcroft - Sitting in the brightly painted, air-conditioned training room of the local hotel in Wau, it’s hard to believe that I’m in South Sudan, a country currently experiencing war. I started just two weeks ago as the Psychosocial Project Coordinator for a joint response with ten other non-governmental organizations (NGOs) funded by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA), which aims to save lives and alleviate suffering throughout the country. HealthNet’s main aim through this project is to provide Mental Health and Psychosocial Support (MHPSS) to vulnerable people who have been affected by the conflict that broke out in 2013.
Of the 11 million people in South Sudan, 1.5 million of them are displaced in their own country. Sadly, it is all too common to hear heart wrenching stories of people physically running for their lives, struggling to carry the few belongings or items of food they were able to grab before fleeing into the bush. Many people witnessed atrocities; people saw their families slaughtered in front of them; people saw horrific acts of physical and sexual violence and often were subjected to the same. This has become the norm here. No one is untouched by this conflict.
I have been working with different organizations in South Sudan since May 2014, just 5 months after the conflict began. The country was tense, volatile and unpredictable. I believe I am starting to observe change in the country now, from previously helpless and hopeless communities who could see no way out of the predicament they were in, to resilient people who want to create positive change in their lives and want to learn how to care for themselves and those around them. This feeling is being reinforced by the Psychosocial training which I am witnessing as I write. Hearing South Sudanese people who are citizens, employees, mothers, fathers, individuals and community members talking about the problems they hear of in the community and how they are currently working to support people facing these problems is tremendously uplifting. It makes me realize that there is a powerful and uniting desire to improve the quality of people’s lives in the country. The participants were sharing their expectations about the training, and one person said that they hoped it would teach them to “restore back the broken hearts in South Sudan”.
The Psychosocial training is being carried out over the next ten days by two trainers from TPO Uganda, a partner organization of HealthNet. It will incorporate a multitude of presentations, discussions and interactive sessions. It will include activities on Psychological First Aid (PFA), which will demonstrate to participants how they can provide immediate and stabilizing support to people experiencing psychosocial difficulties. The training will teach community workers how to identify people in need and provide them with first-phase support. It will also importantly teach them how to monitor these people and refer them to other organizations or health facilities if they need more help, as well as following up and ensuring the person is safe and receiving quality care. The participants are South Sudanese staff from HealthNet and other local organizations that work in the communities in Wau County and Jur River County (Western Bahr el Ghazal State), Aweil North County (Northern Bahr el Ghazal State) and Bor County (Jonglei State).
I feel extremely privileged to be in a position to attend this training. I have seen so much hardship in this country over the last year, and heard so many incomprehensible stories of loss and destruction of communities and lives. It’s therefore immensely rewarding to be part of a training that is going to empower South Sudanese to deliver support directly to their own people, whose stories may until now have been falling upon deaf ears. Now, there will be whole communities of people who will have trained focal points who they can go to talk to about their experiences, who will be able to help them to develop coping mechanisms and to realize their existing internal strength. Someone said to me the other day that people in South Sudan have been suffering in silence for too long; I believe that HealthNet is helping to change that.