We are now firming up our plans and budgeting for our 2020/21 programme of activity. This will begin in May, when we will hold a conference at Butabika Hospital, Kampala for a selected 50 of our 120 practitioners based in Uganda. The title is Trauma and Tragedy: Effectiveness and Challenges of using CATT for children with trauma in Uganda. The conference will be led by our Uganda Operations Manager Elias Byaruhanga, and our 8 Ugandan trainers. Practitioners will share their experiences of treating traumatised children, and will be updated with the latest information about complex trauma. There will be workshops on treating refugee children, working with children traumatised by natural disasters and how to manage ongoing anxiety. We are all really looking forward to it, and are enormously grateful to the East London NHS Trust’s Link project with Uganda for funding 50% of the cost of this event.
Following the success of our training in Armenia in November, we are returning there next Autumn to train some local trainers and deliver a second course hosted by the Children’s Center Foundation in Yerevan. The Center cares for children who have faced many challenges in their lives, including the loss of family, war and persecution and who have travelled there as refugees. The Center also supports Armenian Government initiatives to transform the culture of social work and children’s services in this big-hearted little country. Once again, Rosemarie Ghazaros will be fundraising for our work in Armenia and is planning for an event in London in April, when we hope the Center’s inspirational Director, Mira Antonyan, will be with us in UK.
In the Middle East, we have now appointed Dr Ghalia Al Asha as our Operations Manager based in Amman, Jordan. She is assessing the need for training in key countries with the greatest number of refugees, and ensuring that we give support and supervision to the 90 practitioners we have trained so far. So we expect to do more work there in 2020, which may include training in the new anxiety protocol which our Clinical Trustee, psychologist Victoria Burch, is currently developing. We also train people to use Children and War’s ‘teaching for recovery technique’ (TRT), and of course our own ‘children’s accelerated trauma technique’ (CATT). Dr Ghalia also supports Mohammed El Sharef and Haitham Shamia who are running a child trauma clinic in Gaza City. Funding for a further year of this exciting project has just been agreed, thanks to the generosity and support of our partners IMET2000 and Firefly International.
Dr Ghalia Al Asha & Victoria Burch
So, we have plenty on our plate for 2020 which we expect to be a breakthrough year for us, with your ongoing support and encouragement. Many thanks to all ACT International’s wonderful volunteers, friends, supporters and partners!