Letters from the Field

Dear Friends,

This letter comes with warm greetings and strong wishes for Peace from the Capacitar network in Tanzania. In the Fall of 2002, Capacitar Tanzania was the dream of a group of women who attended a basic weekend workshop in Mwanza that Pat Cane and I facilitated during our first visit to Tanzania. In the Spring of 2004 the network is a reality and includes groups in Tanzania, Kenya and Sudan! I have recently returned from Arusha, Tanzania, where we completed the third in a series of four trainings in Trauma Healing and Transformation. For the most part the women who are participating come from organizations in different areas of Tanzania and share what they are learning with colleagues and with the people they serve.

"Children with difficulties" is the phrase used to describe young boys living on the streets. Many of them come early each day to a center in Mwanza (a rapidly growing city of __ million people) for the Tai Chi that they have come to love. One of the boys has lately begun to lead it, the others move gracefully – resting, really - in a deep silence.

Counselors in Mwanza were introduced to Capacitar practices during a Clinical Pastoral Counseling course at the Medical Center. At Kivulini, a service and advocacy center working with families experiencing domestic violence, a volunteer is teaching

Capacitar practices to the staff who themselves struggle with compassion fatigue and secondary trauma.

In Mwanza, in Aursha and in Musoma AIDS support groups, groups of HIV/AIDS patients' caregivers and other groups of Care Takers of children orphaned because of the AIDS epidemic are using Capacitar practices for themselves, their families, and those with whom they are working. The Capacitar way of empowerment is especially important for people living with HIV/AIDS who find themselves exhausted, discouraged and without the medicine they imagine is their only help. One of the volunteers has said, "People living with AIDS are so happy with these practices that others are encouraged to step up and register as HIV positive."

Women's support groups with various emphases are also beginning to share new learnings about wellness and healing from stress and trauma. These learnings complement the work of economic and/or social empowerment that is the basic purpose of the groups. Some are made up of professional women. Others are neighborhood groups. One is a group of women in a pastoralist tribe – Maasai – who are beginning to settle near urban areas.

A large girl's boarding school in the south of Tanzania includes Tai Chi and other practices as part of the young women's daily school routine. In another town, there is a center for continuing education for young single women who are pregnant. In this center they have the opportunity for academic education, or job training and development of parenting skills. Daily, their practice of A teacher remarked that "the students remind me if I forget to start Tai Chi or Pal Dan Gum."

A clinic and several parish groups and youth groups are also learning practices that that are then shared at home in families and neighborhoods. One of the Capacitar course participants told us that the staff in the clinic where she works is using these practices. "When a woman was crying, I forgot about the fingerholds for emotional release, but the staff remembered!"

Three women from AIDS centers in the coastal area of Kenya joined us for the April workshop, bring with them the delightful flavor of Mombasa! Now they will be arranging for further workshops with the new Tanzania team. Other work in Kenya has been with counselors who are finding that the Capacitar approach to healing and transformation of trauma is what they need in so many of the situations they face today.

In A recent letter, Pat Cane wrote about people who hope to rebuild a country based on peace and justice when all they have known is violence and trauma. This is exactly what the participant from Sudan is already working toward. She and other women peacebuilders already use some of the Capacitar practices for dealing with traumatic memories. She knows that when the peace accords are finally signed, the work of teaching people skills to heal past memories and divisions to be able to open to forgiveness and reconciliation begins in earnest. As Pat says "a long, slow process and not a quick fix. And as Capacitar we are especially committed to grassroots groups working with this important process."

In northern Kenya there is a large UN refugee camp, home to 80,000+ refugees from nine different east African countries. The Jesuit Refugee Service has been developing teams of refugees to work in basic counseling and alternative healing practice in the camp. I worked with over a hundred of these counselors and healers during a week last year. The skills they are learning are helping others in the camp and are beginning – even there – the process of peacebuilding. The resilient spirit and enthusiasm of these men and women continues to inspire me and to support my own commitment to the transformation that enables Peace to flourish.

Throughout this network in East Africa, in healing circles, people are praying… "We join together with the earth and with each other …We join together as many and diverse expressions of one loving mystery, for the healing of the earth and the renewal of all life."

Peace,
Mary Litell