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CTP's STAR Seminar Begins in Liberia

MONROVIA, LIBERIA – Devastated by conflict, the nation of Liberia is beginning the delicate work of securing peace, reconstruction, recovery and reconciliation, while attending to cries for justice – a cry some are concerned could accelerate into future recriminations.

But global humanitarian agency Church World Service (CWS) is teaming up with the Conflict Transformation Program (CTP) at Eastern Mennonite University to help avert future violence by forging trauma counseling into a conflict prevention tool for the region.

CWS and CTP are conducting their first Seminars in Trauma Awareness and Recovery (STAR) in Liberia, Mar. 22-30. The STAR seminars began in the United States following September 11.

The Liberia STAR seminar, scheduled at the Pastoral Retreat Center in Monrovia and co-hosted by the Liberian Council of Churches (LCC), is attracting participants from interfaith, civil society and government sectors from across the country.

According to LCC General Secretary Benjamin Lartey, "The Monrovia STAR training will have nationwide representation. Participants represent all 15 counties in Liberia."

The Monrovia STAR training’s 48 participants reflect Liberian men and women from area Christian and Muslim organizations, non-governmental organizations, colleges and civil society. Three representatives from neighboring Guinea will also attend.

Some of the participants are pastors of churches. Some are NGO program officers or caregivers working with internally displaced persons or ex-combatants.

The Monrovia event will be co-led by Barry Hart, associate professor of trauma and conflict at EMU, and CWS' Ivan DeKam and facilitated by John Chatting of the Nairobi Peace Institute and Violette Nyirarakundu.

A first West African STAR Seminar was held in Freetown, Sierra Leone, in January and was filled to capacity, with more applying than could be accommodated after word got around about the seminar.

"We’re gratified and honored to be able to share this learning environment in Liberia," says CWS’ DeKam. "We hope this will be an occasion for trauma recovery and an opportunity to build greater skills for healing the wounds that Liberians have suffered for far too long."

Responding to the seminar’s invitation, one Liberian church leader said, "Everybody in Liberia is traumatized and without the healing process within an individual, there will be no reconciliation and peace in Liberia’s communities and society,"

STAR seminars train church and community leaders who then carry the skills learned in the seminar to their congregants and communities. The program's curriculum focuses on healing trauma, an introduction to broad justice, security and peace-building issues, and how resolving trauma can promote restorative justice rather than retribution.

"You can't deal with trauma without dealing with justice," says CWS' Ivan DeKam. "So we are not training people to treat trauma simply as 'critical incidence.'

"We are talking about healing trauma as a process," he says, "in a way that can actually transform conflict resolution into conflict prevention."

Healing the wounds of the Liberian heart is no small task. During a visit to Monrovia earlier this month, one CWS representative reported hearing sirens, then seeing Land Rovers go by with UN troops carrying guns, followed by a shiny new Jeep.

Curious, the humanitarian worker was told by his companion, "How do you expect justice, peace and good neighborliness to be in Liberia if in the whole town of Monrovia, you have many convoys like this everyday, and the persons in this Jeep are former rebel leaders?"

DeKam says the STAR seminars "offer participants a safe space to give voice to and resolve their own traumas" and are intended to "train us and our fellow caregivers so they can go on and provide trauma healing in a way that encourages the kind of restorative justice that permits true reconciliation and supports sustainable peace."

Church World Service created the STAR trainings initially to respond to trauma needs following the September 11 terrorist attacks in the U.S. Responding to the same needs on a global level, the STAR seminar has expanded and has hosted over 300 participants from the U.S. and international participants from 38 countries on the EMU campus and in other settings.

CWS Emergency Response Director Rick Augsburger says, "Our assessment and research have resulted in this unique program which addresses the resolution of trauma as a key component in achieving conflict transformation in an effort to build a lasting peace." Recognizing that anger and hatred are trauma's results, STAR trainings aim to transform this cycle by promoting peace building at individual, community and societal levels.

In a September 11 tribute this year, CWS Executive Director John L. McCullough announced a second $1 million grant to EMU to support both STAR curriculum and scholarships.

Prior to the January STAR training in Sierra Leone, CWS STAR seminars had been conducted only in the U.S., at EMU’s Virginia campus. But Alimamy Koroma, Secretary General of the Inter-Religious Council of Sierra Leone, encouraged exporting the program to the Mano River Union as part of the church community's psychosocial and trauma work.

The Mano River Union countries of Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea are focal points for Church World Service’s new, multi-year Africa Initiative. CWS was at the forefront of advocacy for the Liberian people, urging greater attention by the U.S. government, the UN and other international bodies, prior to the outbreak of last summer’s climactic conflicts culminating in the ouster of former Liberian President Charles Taylor.

Church World Service is a humanitarian agency and cooperative ministry of 36 Protestant, Orthodox and Anglican denominations, providing sustainable self-help and development, disaster relief and refugee assistance in partnership worldwide. Established in 1994, CTP encourages the building of a just peace at all levels of society in the United States and abroad.

— posted March 23, 2004