Dialogue Circles in Colombian Schools

1.Problem Gender-based and racial violence

2.Solution: Sharing funds and professional resources to change violence into dialog and cooperation. We have planned and worked since 2018, collaborating with 20 partners in a network of NGOs (attached). In their own department, Antioquía, population: 6,407,000, partner Corporación Región f.ex. has focused on Dialog circles in the schools of the Vallé de Abura (see video in Elevator pitch), ensuring all primary and secondary school learners have access to quality, safe, and equitable learning environments

3.Scaling globally: Our next meeting, a webinar on June 18th, targets Spanish speakers among 1600 members: psychologist Hector Aristizabal presents work with eco-dialogs with former antagonists in the jungles of their former violence, see https://reconectando.org/territoriosagrado/. After summer, a webinar in English with international speakers will address preventing and healing violence. Nobel peace laureate 2018 Denis Mukwege has expressed interest.

What problem?

Violence at home spreads outward into schools and societies. Specifically, our partners - mostly women-led and women´s rights NGOs in a society recovering after 50 years of warfare - deal with violence in homes, protect human rights defenders (HRDs), moderate equitable classrooms, and care for families in times of crisis. ISHHR supports women leaders and HRDs by promoting the right to education and sharing treatment methods for traumatic Human Rights abuse, facilitating post-conflict reconciliation, reconstruction and re-socialization.

Scaling up

Habitual violence can also erupt into wars like the one "ended" by Peace accords in 2016, but currently ramping up in the form of state violence against peaceful demonstrators costing 23 lives in May. See https://eeas.europa.eu/headqua...

Contributing factors relate to solutions, by the simple truth that frustration, fear, and hopelessness incite anger and violence. By addressing violence wisely and training people in alternative responses, we will decrease violence 

Capacity-building in Antioquía addresses Gender Based Violence (GBV), discrimination, and exclusion with educational instruments designed to change behavior, practices, and attitudes, implementing safe and adequate care and gender equity.

Scale in Colombia
https://www.un.org/sexualviole...

In 2020, 239 cases of sexual violence: women, girls, men, boys,  Afro-Colombians, indigenous persons, and disabled. 2021:#152executions

ISHHR professionals have state-of-the-art competency in post-traumatic research and treatment: we work with people subjected to violence. Colombia-based partners work to change attitudes and behavior towards women and girls and eliminate violence towards HRDs. Together, we train practitioners and psychosocial caregivers in methods for change (see Who does Solution serve). Regular contacts cement the foundations for collaboration in the sciences of mental health and education. Digital teaching methods and webinars explain and practice new models 

The last decades of developments in mental health and education are systematic applications of science.

Neuropsychology reveals that the brain´s synapses wither after traumatic events: circuits involving the medial prefrontal cortex become dysfunctional. Recovery occurs after appropriate treatment: mental health specialists advanced software. Among clinical technologies used are EMDHR (Eye-movement dissentisaízation)and NET.

In pedagogics, John Hattie (2009) integrates huge amounts of educational research, giving individual elements of teaching and learning an effect-size on learning: a “d” value. The average of these effect sizes, d=0.4, is the “hinge point. Focusing efforts beyond this value will more likely achieve significant gains for students.

Economy and technology develop best in stable societies. Improving education and mental health will help to stabilize Antioquia.

Who they are:  Survivors and offspring of a 50-year war, both victims and perpetrators.

To understand their needs: We get to know them. 20 Colombian organizations are recruited for this capacity-building alliance. As our local facilitator in Antioquía, Hector Aristizabal, writes,

"Violence in the home is the root cause of all violence in Colombia".

They are underserved: While U.N.S.C. convened (21.04.21) to discuss the killings of social leaders in Colombia,Sandra Pena, the indigenous governor who criticized coca plantations, became 2021´s victim #152 of state-condoned violence.

What we are doing to address their needs; Our joint solution will achieve specific results in education and mental health with an incremental model. We start out in Antioquia by training: 

• 100 teachers from 10 municipalities trained to develop socio-emotional capacities in classrooms (already in progress, led by Corporación Región
• 20 professional and community-based psychosocial caregivers in Trauma Recovery Techniques (TRT)
• 20 caregivers to implement International Child Development Programme with women, girls, and families   (ICDP Colombia)
• 20 Change Agents to help women prevent Gender Based Violence (GBV) in their networks, changing behavior, practices and attitudes (Chnage Agents) 
• 20 psychosocial caregivers and HRDs in workshops on the GBV Manual

Facilitator teams are engaged from Colombia and the world. Many workshops are train-the-trainers labs, where a participant may become a facilitator, continuing to qualify colleagues or associates in her network, and thus creating incremental growth.

Through work in schools, Corporación Región (CR) facilitates quality learning-experience in peri-urban and rural schools with collaborative projects: teachers and pupils in hands-on experiments, like Dialog Circles (see videos). CR makes “Peace at School” in Valle de Aburrá. Other professionals engage students in other parts of Antioquía.

While health care repairs what is weakened or hurt, education prevents through resource development; the two interact. Teachers and health personal can learn to practice and facilitate resources. Outcomes multiply as trainees reach out to classrooms, networks, institutions, and neighborhoods. Corporación Región knows whether these are skills that require certification, or not.

The International Society for Health and Human Rights (ISHHR) arranges capacity-building in post-conflict zones every 4-5 years, as well as an  important conference for organizations working in the treatment and rehabilitation of survivors - and the prevention of human rights abuses.

Service providers and representatives of human rights organizations from every continent attend this event, therefore providing an excellent environment for informal networking, the exchange of knowledge, experience, developments, clinical practice, and research and discussions about various strategies to address the needs of survivors of human rights violations.

ISHHR has implemented 10 such programs of capacity-building and international conferences for health and human rights, in: France (1987), Costa Rica (1989), Chile (1991), the Philippines (1994), South Africa (1998), Croatia (2001), India (2005), Peru (2008), Tblisi (2011), and Georgia (2011).

Thus, ISHHR has long experience post-conflict - but never in Colombia. We   have therefore been preparing for Antioquía since 2018.

ISHHR members are practitioners and academics with state-of-the-art competency in post-traumatic research, care, and treatment. Sharing it with interdisciplinary practitioners is what makes it innovative.

We recruit a Local Organization Committee (LOC) to participate in the capacity building in each new post-conflict region. Since 2018, 20 Colombian-based CSOs have signed up to change attitudes and behavior towards women and eliminate violence towards human rights defenders. Whether in person-to-person or virtual meetings, our interdisciplinary working group continues to gather and learn from each other to establish a firm foundation for collaboration. Some ISHHR members have neither been in Colombia nor accompanied Human Rights Defenders into forests to facilitate healing in the wild. Thus, what we have to learn from each other may be unique and/or disruptive – a mutual learning process!

In Colombia, we cooperate with two universities in the research community (www.udea.edu.co [National Faculty for Public Health] and www.funlam.edu.co), cultivating education as a conduit for health and strengthening resilience from elementary school to the university level. Together we are facilitating a 3-year program of capacity building on all levels, including an international conference on Caring for the Family in a Time of Crisis, to present the work.

Our partner and educational coordinator Corporación Región serves teachers in the 10 municipalities of the Aburrá Valley (population 3,726,219) by training them to develop socio-emotional capacities in secondary and middle school pupils (210,242). See attached videos of their programs. With sufficient funding, these programs can expand to cover the whole of Antioquia (population 6,407,000).

The population of Colombia is 51,392,392

By means of the training workshops listed under "What is your solution?” our alliance will initiate networks of change. We have signed 5 workshop facilitator teams, both international and Colombian experts in these methods, who: #1) will train 100 teachers in how to develop socio-emotional capacities in the classroom: #2) will train 20 NGOs and community-based psychosocial caregivers in implementing Trauma Recovery Techniques (TRT); #3) will help 20 to improve their parental roles using International Child Development Programme (ICDP); #4) will train 20 women as Change Agents, to teach the prevention of Gender-Based Violence (GBV) in their networks, by changing behavior, practices and attitudes, and #5) will train 20 trainers in the GBV Manual and qualify them as facilitators in the method, with the goal of reaching 200 psychosocial caregivers and HRDs in the next year.

MEASURING OUR PROGRESS

The end results of educating more girls to a higher level are related to the fact that education and positive engagement in society reduce violence and contribute to a more peaceful, productive, and innovative society. In the first year, some results are expected:

• Decrease in female mortality[1] as GBV decreases and accountability of security services improves
• Decrease in female morbidity, as the access to, and quality of, health care for women improve due to participation of Colombian service providers in a global network
• Increase in secondary education, particularly for girls. Although we will train and educate adults working with young women and girls, an end goal is to empower girls to pursue their interests and commit to education.

In order to monitor systemic improvements in education and gender based violence over five years, we will:        

Track statistics and register changes in school attendance and results:

1. 1. National examination results girls in secondary school
   2. Percentages of girls graduating
   3. Young women entering high school and higher education

We will also track statistics and register changes in Gender Based Violence

We have at the moment:
1 full-time staff (CEO)

12 half-time staff (members of the Board for the secretariat in Norway)

9 members of the International Council, who have an advisory role.

8 members of the Scientific committee

20 leaders in the Local Organizing Committee (LOC) giving support and inspiration.

The secretariat Board resident in Norway:

• Jone Schanche Olsen, psychiatrist, leader of Transkulturelt Psykiatrisk Senter, Stavanger University Hospital
•  Lovise Angen Krogstad, psychologist and social anthropologist, former leader Refugee team at Regional Trauma Competency Center(RVTS E).
• Rolf Vårdal, clinical physiotherapist at Senter for Migrasjons-helse Bergen, has worked with survivors in Peru,
• Marit C. Borchgrevink, child psychologist, has lead Psykososialt Team for flyktninger i Nord-Norge.
• Patrick O´Loughlin, child-psychologist at RVTS Vest, works in Botswana and Tanzania.
• Sofia Colorado Valencia,  a psychologist from Colombia, has completed her Master's degree in psychology at UiO, Norway.
• Ana Maria Navarro Melendro, a psychologist from Colombia, is under specialization as a neuropsychologist. She works at Statped.
• Odd Harald Røkenes, specialist in clinical psychology at RVTS Midt, Norsk Psykologforenings Human Rights Committee member for 12 years.
  
• Valeria Markova, Ph.D. in migrations health, psychologist at Senter for Migrasjonshelse I Bergen. 

Scientific Committee

• National Faculty for Public Health, UdeAa,. Committee leader, Professor Steven Orozco

• Corporacion Region, Medellin. Luis Fernando Herrero Gil, Coordinator of  the Right to Education; Director  Isabel Sepulveda Arango
  

• Catholic University Luis Amigó. Luz-Marina Arango, Dean, Faculty of Psychology and Social Sciences
  

• Centro de Atencion Psicosocial, Peru. Carmen Wurst, psychologist, member of Truth Commission. psico@caps.org.pe - www.caps.org.pe

•  Spanish Commission for Refugees (CEAR).  clinical psychologist Javier Pedraz

• De Hemisfeer, Den Bosch, The Netherlands. Psychiatrist Boris Droždek PhD

• Centro de Trauma, U de Coimbra, Portugal. Contact: psychologist, research fellow Joana Becker

• Health and Human Rights Info, Norway. Exec Director Elisabeth Langdal
  

Since 2018, the ISHHR Council has had 11 delegates representing Netherlands, Turkey, Uganda, Serbia, Spain, Norway, Colombia, UK, Georgia, USA, and Australia. Read about them on https.ishhr.com. The 11 members provide the secretariat, now based in Norway, with helpful advice and inspiration. In particular, Loes Van Willigen, the psychiatrist who formally established ISHHR in the 1980s together with Latin-American psychotherapists, remains on the Council as Honorary president and we are extremely grateful for her input.

The leadership team, or Executive Committee (ExCom), consists of the CEO/Secretary-General, Treasurer, International Coordinator, and Secretary. Hande Karakilic was Secretary-General from 2017-2020, but was forced to resign because of the difficulties incurred by attempting to work for Human Rights in her country, Turkey. Gwynyth Øverland was elected digitally by the Council to assume the Secretary-General role until the situation permits a general assembly.

The ExCom leads the secretariat and is permanently on call

In addition, our leadership team also represents the 20 organizations of the LOC. See their photos below:
Caritas Colombiana, Cruz Roja Colombiana, Seccional Antioquia, Fundación Forjando Futuros, Fundación ICDP, Fundación Oriéntame, CIASE, Humanas, ONU Mujeres, Pastoral Social Medellín, PBI, Reconectando, Sisma Mujer, Abogados sin Fronteras, Casa Tres Patios, Centro Fe y Cultura, Codacop, Comité Internacional Cruz Roja, Conciudadania and Universidad de Antioquía.

Please check out our flyer

https://tinyurl.com/5ammnunt

in English, and

https://tinyurl.com/4d8vhxb3 in Spanish

We  are applying:

To change Colombia by sharing funds and professional resources working together with ISHHR´s network of 20 NGOs since 2018.

Part of our project that received only passing notice above was a research project on Colombian Resilience, planned in collaboration with the two universities mentioned under Our Solution, Catholic University Luis Amigó. Luz Marina Arango Gómez, Doctor of Psychology, Dean of the Faculty of Psychology and Social Sciences,  and UdeA professor, Steven Orozco.

We ask the following questions:

How can generative collaboration on education promote thriving, strengthen agency, and explain resilience?

What can resilient survivors in the target area teach us – co-creating knowledge for teachers?

The damage to mental health in violent conflict areas is often neglected, with serious consequences for survivors. 

In Antioquia, research processes on the armed conflict have taken place, both by civil society and by academia and institutions. We will cooperate on the research with both Universidad de Antioquia (UdeA)/the National Faculty of Public Health, and Universidad Católica Luis Amigó.

As the Truth Commission website reports, Antioquía has shown remarkable resilience in spite of being a center for violence during the recent wars

My doctorate on survivor resilience: Post Traumatic Survival... (Overland, 2013), was about just such a group: Cambodian survivors who managed remarkably well in spite of extreme hardship.  Thus, a strength- and resiliency-based perspective is the heart of our project, a key theme in preparing to do research on

The Resilience of Colombian Survivors

in cooperation  with our Colombian partners

From the Banking section of the application, it must be evident that Financial (e.g. improving accounting practices, pitching to investors) is the area where we need most help.

We are particularly well qualified for

The equitable education prize is the obvious one, but it seems that American projects are prioritized - fair enough!

We are particularly well-qualified for several of the prizes below, but have had to leave this section for the end and are unfortunately unable to complete it.