Africanews

Views and news on peace, justice and reconciliation in Africa

July 1996

ACTION AND CONTACTS

Training of Trainers

A five week Training of Trainers (TOT) seminar on community Based Reconciliation and Trauma Healing began on April 24th at the National Pastoral Centre, Kenema in Sierra Leone. It brought together 27 participants from all over the country. The country is entering its fifth year of civil conflict, with hopes of peace in the air. It is the first course that has been held at the centre since 1994 due to serious road blockage due to the war.
Topics covered were planning an Adult Training Programme, Community Awareness, Social and Cultural Realities in Sierra Leone, Justice, Trauma, Basic Helping Skills, Communication, Conflict and Reconciliation. These topics were presented in animated and interactive sessions based on Adult Learning Methods.
Data for the course was drawn not only from studies made on each of the above topics by scholars, but more so from the data drawn from a series of brainstorming sessions which the coordinating committee held since last July, 1995 in the provincial centres of Bo, Kenema and Makeni as well as Freetown, the nations capital. Examples of questions raised were: how has this war affected you, what may be the causes from your perspective, who suffers the most, how has socio-cultural realities been changed, challenged or endangered because of the war, etc.?
Every war has roots that are unique to it, and attempting to transform that conflict into peace and healing means getting to those unique roots and name the issues, find ways to deal with the issues and bring people together around those issues in order to bring a new relationship among themselves as well as these findings.
At the end of the course the trainers were assisted in putting together animators' packets which when completed will be in many of the various languages used by the people of Sierra Leone. The trainers will work in teams and prepare 3 or 4 animators for each of the 26 pilot communities around the country.
The course was coordinated by the National Caritas Office in Freetown, funded by many of the international caritas Organisations as well as Catholic Relief Services.
For more information :
National Pastoral Centre
Pastoral & Social Development
P.O. Box 202
Kenema, Sierra Leone
Tel.: 232 042 445
Contact Persons:

Fr. Rocco Puopolo
National Pastoral Centre
Kenema, Sierra Leone, West Africa
Tel.: 232 42 455

Fr. Brian Starken
Caritas Office
Freetown, Sierra Leone, West Africa
Tel.: 232 22 240235

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PeaceLink 1996