This weekend I’ll be headed back to Haiti with my team of international faculty, to continue training Haitian caregivers in Mind-Body Skills that they can bring to their traumatized families, the more than 1 million who still live in tent camps, colleagues, patients, and students at their workplaces. This is the next step as we create a nation-wide program of psychological self-care for Haiti. I can’t wait to be back in Port-au-Prince with our faculty, and the wonderful, caring group of Haitian professionals we’re gathering together and training to be the nucleus of society-wide change.
You may remember our first training in December 2010, which was cut short by election riots. Here are a couple of moving testimonials from attendees who are practicing what they learned . . . Saint-Juste Desir, Teacher at the Public school in Raymond and at the Family Care Program for Better Future International, in Cayes-Jacmel, Haiti, writes:
At the end of December, I lost one of my cousins who was about 30. I was really shocked because she was not sick. So hearing the news shocked me very hard. After that I could not sleep at night, I also had headache. By chance, I recalled the CMBM training and I decided to try it so I could sleep. I tried the “soft belly technique” and I slept all night. Since then, I use it every night before going to bed.
As I am a teacher, after the training in December, I was teaching math to my students. I realized that they were tired and could not concentrate. I asked them if they would like to experience some relaxation techniques. They agreed. I put music, I asked them to stand up and we did some “shaking and dancing” for about 5 to 10 minutes. After that we continued working with no problem. They were relaxed and they asked me why I didn’t do that with them before. They loved it.
I expect to know more techniques during the Advanced Training so I can help myself better and also help my students.
Jacques Africot, Project director, Better Future International, from Jacmel, Haiti, writes:
The technique I use the most is the “soft belly”. It can be practiced anywhere, any moment. It is the easiest technique for me to calm down my nerves, reduce my stress. Any time, I feel stressed or depressed I use it.
An Experience that surprised me: I was talking to a friend and she was suffering in her breast. I asked her if she wanted to make an experience. She said yes. I put a soft music and I asked her to close her eyes. After some deep breathing, I started to guide her slowly with the “body scan technique.” After finishing, she was smiling: Her pain was completely gone. I was myself surprised.
I practiced different CMBM techniques with my children: soft belly, shake and dance, drawing, imagery. I realized that after practicing those techniques they sleep better. Less nightmares, no headache if someone had one before we practiced it. And they sometimes ask me to practice with them.
I expect that the advanced training will give me more techniques to guide others.
By the time our training is finished—the end of February– these Haitian caregivers will all be taking the CMBM model out into the wider world and leading “small groups.” Each person will begin helping others manage their own stress and anxiety (still lingering from the January 12th 2010 earthquake, cholera outbreaks, and continued hardship and displacement). If each caregiver leads 1 group of 10 Haitians, that means the 120 caregivers we’re training will immediately be able to reach a minimum of 1200 Haitians in rural areas as well as cities; and that number will grow as our trainees continue to use these skills with the individuals and in classrooms and with additional small groups.
Making Haiti a community of healers—that is our goal. “This program,” as our Haitian Program Director Linda Métayer has said, “is a gift to the Haitian people.”
If you’d like to support us as we bring this gift to the Haitian people, please click here.
