Trauma counsellors are helping women and children in northern Nigeria to deal with severe psychosocial consequences following conflict which has left 2.7 million people traumatised.
A charity helping Christians persecuted because of their faith is about to expand. A new building, opening later in 2017, will provide a residential centre to help those needing more intense treatment. The charity says it will be big enough to accommodate 30 people and have a training facility to meet the growing need for counsellors. It built a similar facility in Iraq to help the victims of the Islamic State group, and the service has also helped victims of the conflict with Fulani herdsmen in Nigeria’s Middle Belt states.
First of its kind
The centre will be the first of its kind in a region hit hard by conflict. ‘We have different kinds of trauma in Nigeria,’ said Patience* a counsellor. ‘We have Boko Haram. We have war. We have ethnic crises. We have religious crises. And everywhere people are traumatised.’
One child, when asked to draw things that worried or scared them, just folded her piece of paper into a square box, and wrote the name of her father on it. It represented his coffin.
The counsellors helped her understand her feelings through mentally ‘burying’ her father. ‘She got to the point where she was able to bury him in her own way,’ Patience said. ‘In her mind, that was what was preventing her from really believing that her father was dead. She had to bring out that expression from her mind and unload the burden that she had been carrying for a long time. After that, she felt relieved and finally accepted his death. The girl now appears to be a well-adjusted 12-year-old, able to confidently tell her story.
When the new Trauma Centre building opens, it will offer help to children and adults. Meanwhile, trained carers will continue to meet with women and children in their own communities.
