At a time when material help is pouring in for tsunami victims from around the world, Centre for Victims of Torture (CVICT)—a leading Nepali NGO specializing in treatment and counseling to torture victims, has proposed to provide training to locally produce psycho-social counselors in the countries hit by tsunami killer waves.

In a statement issued Sunday, CVICT said it has a pool of over 140 trained psycho-social counselors of which some 15 counselors have already been involved in conducting psycho-social training at international level.

The Indian Ocean earthquake and resulting tidal waves last month (on December 26) have already killed over 150,000 people in South, South East Asia and Africa. Of them, thousands of people have seen their family members, and near and dear ones swept away by killer waves to death in front of their eyes. Millions of people have been rendered homeless by the waves.

“Immediately after the disaster, trauma is mainly physical in nature and victims are consoled and supported by members of their community and aid workers. But after three to four weeks, they start getting reminded by trauma and after around six weeks trauma reaction increases. This is why they need psycho-social counseling and emotional support,” said Dr. Bhogendra Sharma, President of CVICT.

According to CVICT, the training of trainers (TOT) to produce psycho-social counselors in the affected countries will have to be conducted at two levels—a brief training at the community level and a professional training for a relatively longer period. Up to 150 counselors can be trained after half a dozen training sessions, the organisation said.

“Psycho-social counseling has already been started in Sri Lanka and also to some extent in India. But there is an acute shortage of trained manpower in tsunami-hit countries including Indonesia, Thailand and Maldives,” said Dr. Sharma. “Nepali counselors can conduct training, to local people who can speak English, in those countries. Compared to western trainers, training by skilled Nepali counselors will be cost-effective as well as culturally-sensitive,” he added.

CVICT has also provided advance psycho-social training to would-be counselors from Pakistan and Bangladesh and also to Afghan refugees, the statement said.

“Basic principles of providing counseling services to victims of torture and disaster are same. The cases of torture victims, however, is more complicated,” said Dr. Sharma, who is also the President of International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims (IRCT).

Based in Copenhagen, IRCT is a global network of over 200 centres around the world that offer treatment to torture victims and also engages in prevention and advocacy. nepalnews.com by Jan 09 05