Several
ACBS members, such as JoAnne
Dahl, D. J. Moran and Ross White have taken on a more personal involvement --
visiting Sierra Leone together with Beate to give ACT trainings. Beate was gracious enough to answer
some questions about her recent experiences with ACT in Sierra Leone.
Doug: The people
of Sierra Leone have been through so much. How are they coping?
Beate:
It is a complicated situation. When I visited Sierra Leone for the first time
in 2010 , I met Aminata – in the
picture below. She lives in one of the amputee-camps, the rebels cut her arm in
the war when she was 12; she is around 30 now, has 3 children and she cooks
palm oil on the fire to sell it.
Like human beings often do, people in Sierra Leone try to forget all the
cruel events, for example they pray to forget - and these people in the amputee
camps are very much left alone with no support by the government, and not much
possibility to earn their own living, only supported by inhabitants of the
close village who do not have much for their own families.
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| Survivors of the conflict must find ways to cope. |
Aminata
is one of the victims we hope to support through the therapists we train in the
workshops. This year, Hannah Bockarie, many of you met her at the World
Conference in Parma, organized an ACT training with 35 local counselors in Bo, the second
biggest city in the country. So, Ross White, Jennifer Nardozzi and I
traveled around and did a few workshops this year.
Doug: What
was your experience like with these workshops?
Beate: This was my third visit to Sierra
Leone, and my experience is that we are building a solid basis here. People are
awake, and very quick in adapting the ACT approach to their therapy skills. I
never experienced such gratefulness before.
It worked really well. These participants hardly wanted to take the breaks,
even though we have this hot and moist climate. They are not only eager to
learn, but so quick in understanding and adapting what we give to them. We had social workers in the workshop who work with street kids, and they adapted the life line exercise to teach their boys the difference between the "easy way", this is going to the street, avoiding the father who beats them or avoiding school problems, and the "best way", the valued way, this could be asking for professional support for their families.
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| Therapists practice the ACT life line exercise. |
Doug: Those
therapists sound really talented and motivated.
Beate:
There is a lot of experience there, some of them with 10-15 years as
counsellors. Their willingness to support each other, and their experience of
community is immense. Therapists shared, how hard it is sometimes, to end their
workday. One woman said, “ all these girls who have been raped are coming to
see me, they are stigmatized, their families don’t want them any more, so I
take them to the police, outside my working hours, I give them money for food,
even if I have no money myself.”
Doug: Does
it seem like ACT has something to offer?
Beate: At
the end of the workshop, many came personally to shake our hands and thank us
for the blessing we bring with our method. We met some people who we had
trained previously, and you can see how valuable ACT is for them. People
reported that they used ACT successfully in their daily practice and that they share the tools they got with
their colleagues. They used ACT for taking care of themselves as caregivers and
this was so needed. They do an incredible amount of work and there are hardly
any capacities for their support, like supervision.
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| Participants are proud of what they have learned. |
Doug: It
sounds like some really good work is happening there. What’s next?
Beate:
It was so fulfilling to be there, and to see how local therapists are building
up what we started. This is our goal, that people like Hannah take it on, that
they train their people in the future and we can go to other places. Hannah
showed me a proposal she wrote for opening an ACT center with an experienced
colleague who participated in last years and this years training. We also have
requests from other parts of the country, Makeni for example, where the rate of
domestic violence and sexual violence against women is the highest in the
country.
Doug: Anything
else you would like ACBS members to know?
Beate: I
could go on and on, this project is so close to my heart. It´s such a gift for
me, to be connected to my friends and colleagues in Sierra Leone and to learn
from them about community, friendliness and caring. If you want to consider
coming as a trainer, please visit our SIG Meeting at the ACBS World Conference in Washington, D.C. or contact me.
Thank
you for taking the time to read this. Thank you for supporting this with your contribution
to ACBS and the fund. Thanks for being this visionary community, empowering so
many people around the world.
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| Left to right: Beate Ebert, Hannah Bockarie, Ross White |
