Global Insights reader and long term friend and work collegue of Dr Suter, Barbara Ferguson talked to us about her motivation for setting up the "Train the Counselor" program in the Democratic Republic of Congo. We caught up with her on the set of her training DVD as she prepares to head back to Africa later this year.  The Keith Suter blog team wish Barbara and her team all the best for the coming months and look forward to sharing her updates with you via the blog.

Barbara Ferguson taking a break from making her training DVD in Sydney earlier this month.

After a decade of the most violent war since World War II and more than 5 million related deaths, almost a million people in the Eastern DRC are displaced. The region is relatively inaccessible and insecure so the plight of the Congolese rarely makes the news in Australia. People have fled their homes in terror, losing their only asset, their land. They struggle to meet basic needs to feed, clothe and house themselves. An estimated 80% of the population subsists below the poverty line. International donors are contributing to the work of local and international agencies involved in restoring the physical wellbeing of the civilian population in as far as security permits. However, social and psychological needs are largely unmet in the under-resourced health care facilities where the focus must be on the overwhelming number of medical emergencies. Especially in need of appropriate social and psychological care are the more than 40,000 women and girls in the area who are known to have been gang raped by soldiers or rebel militia. In many cases they have also been mutilated and tortured and left with irreparable fistulas. Often also pregnant and HIV positive as a result of the rapes, the women may be blamed for bringing shame on their families and so are rejected and destitute. Children born of the rapes are stigmatized or abandoned to orphanages. The disabling and enduring legacy of their physical and emotional wounds on so many of these women and children affects entire communities directly or indirectly with adverse implications for post conflict social and economic development in the region.

Imported western models of counseling to meet the social-psychological needs of survivors of war and torture trauma have been disseminated to a limited number of personnel in the hospitals and grass roots organizations serving the communities. However, there is a call for expert help to adapt these models so that they reflect the needs in this particular context.

If these traumatized individuals continue to lack the skills to understand and deal with their emotional pain, they will continue to suffer social and psychological disability, limiting their capacity to participate in their families and contribute to their communities.

In late 2007 I first learnt about the violent torture and rape of tens of thousands of Congolese women. Their suffering has haunted me ever since. I contacted several friends, including refugees from the DRC, and we started meeting as the Australian Congolese Group (ACG) to plan what we could do to help the women and stop the rape. I have screened a documentary about the plight of the Congolese women in several locations in NSW. Two Congolese members of ACG went to Geneva in July 2008 to raise the problem with the UN. I have e-mailed a sample letter for all my contacts to lobby our Prime Minister and our Foreign Minister to increase our aid to the DRC and to increase our international advocacy for peace in the DRC. In recent years, approximately once a month, I have addressed groups in libraries, clubs (such as the View, Rotary and Lions) and churches to raise awareness of the ways in which civilians, especially women and children, suffer in war - with special reference to the wars in South Vietnam and the DRC.

Barbara discussing the film shoot with Mr Vangu Kitoto, President of the Democratic Republic of Congo community in NSW, Australia

Working with the supervising agency Heal Africa, the "Train the Councelor Trainers" program aims to provide the following:

1.  At least 20 local counselor trainers in the DRC will have the skills and knowledge to conduct trauma counseling workshops for local health and welfare workers, improving the social-psychological well-being of traumatized individuals and communities.

2. Estimating that each of the counselor trainers will conduct a minimum of 3 seminars in 2009, they will train a minimum of 300 workers who will have an impact on the well-being of a minimum of 3,000 individuals in 2009-10 and the potential to impact many more people in subsequent years..

3.  The training DVD in Swahili will be available for use in the DRC and anywhere Swahili is spoken

4. Raising awareness in Australia about the issues in the DRC via media interviews and speaking engagements.

Barbara Ferguson.

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The Making Of the DVD.

The International Film School of Sydney at Rosebury was on hand to help Barbara put together her training DVD. The cinematographers had only recently arrived to study in Australia from Barcelona, Spain and were delighted to get involved with such an important project as part of their studies. The director pictured is  Gerard Mates  and Jordi Planell is operating the camera. Here are some behind the scenes shots for you to enjoy.