PSYCHOSOCIAL TRAUMA AWARENESS & RESILIENCE

BUILDING RESILIENCE THROUGH SAFE SPACES

Following the traumatic events of the attack on Westgate Shopping Centre in Nairobi, DiPaD initiated the project to create spaces for caregivers, security and media personnel and people who were directly affected, to process their experiences and learn strategies for self-care.

This project reached out to small community of caregivers, security and media personnel so that they can educate themselves and their organizations to:

Engage in healing their own secondary trauma and
Enlighten their organizations about the length and complexity of the healing journey
Learn about tools for addressing trauma for individuals and groups

The project was able to demystify some of the approaches used to respond to traumatic events and in a context where:

There is a lot of denial about trauma and
Approaches on short term responses that focus on physical and psychological first aid rather than the socio therapy processing models that also involve emotional and spiritual safety as well as paying attention to the justice needs of the victims