Example of Resilience Programs offered by ICOF Program
Introduction
The main message of this presentation is that Social Support is one of the key means of healing and resilience even in conflict zones.
The methodology of this presentation is mainly reflection and sharing from lived experiences, especially in ICOF Resilience Programs.
About ICOF Program:
ICOF stands for Inter-Congregational Ongoing Formation.
It is Inter-congregational since it is founded by and run conjointly by 5 congregations:
- Congregation of the Holy Spirit (Spiritans)
- Missionaries of Africa (White Fathers);
- Missionary Sisters of Our Lady of Africa (MSOLA / White Sisters)
- Missionary Sisters of Our Lady of Apostles (OLA)
- Society of African Missions (SMA)
ICOF Program was founded in 2015 mainly to serve priests and religious needing ongoing formation, with a particular focus for those in Africa.
ICOF Resilience Program. Among others, ICOF runs a Resilience program, which aims at the fullness of life in the people, especially those in conflict zones. And where a person has been broken by trauma, loss, burnout, and problematic transitioning, we aim at their healing and bouncing back to healthy life.
We also attempt to provide our target population with more skills for bringing healing and growth through their pastoral care of their faithful.
Countries in which we have run programs. We have run resilience programs in the Republic of Central Africa, Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso and Nigeria. These are among the countries that have been or even still are having conflict.
We will start by describing social support, then we will highlight three of the lessons we have learnt from experience in working there.
1. Social Support[1]
Social support is one of the most fruitful ways of bringing healing and resilience in persons living and working in conflict zones.
A person who was working and living in a conflict zone had just come back from hiding from terrorists who had come to abduct people, kill some and burn houses in the neighbourhood. He was back into the house from which someone was abducted a few days earlier, and there was nothing yet done to provide him more security. A journalist asked him what he most wished at that moment of uncertainty to happen in order for him to feel better. He said he most wished a visit or a call from his leader, or at least from the people he considered close to him. He desired this more than even being guarded by armed police or being brought to a safer place. He needed someone to express care, concern, listening ear… in other words, he needed social support.
Types of Social Support With examples from our experience in ICOF’s Resilience programs, let us see the four types of social support: emotional; instrumental, informational, and appraisal.
Emotional social support: ICOF Program offer an opportunity for individual and group accompaniment in where members have 10 hours of sharing about their emotions around their significant experiences for which they need resilience and healing. This accompaniment is a form of healing communion. in this sharing, emotions are noticed, named, and processed. There is the experience of healing by empathy from others in the context of a healing communion. It was helpful to be allowed to feel and to allow emotions to be expressed. Some participants found this permission to feel very liberating since the expressed emotions could be unblocked and healed.
Instrumental social support: instrumental social support is where there is practical help given to a person to alleviate the suffering. Among the practical help we have seen includes participants making a collection of money to support those among them who had more serious financial challenges in their zones of conflict. Others were teaching and encouraging each other in doing therapeutic and relaxation exercises in small groups in the afternoons.
Informational social support: we have provided psychoeducation in topics like the bereavement process, PTSD, polyvagal theory, capacitar exercises, relaxation techniques, management of fear, helpful way of talking about traumatic experiences, the importance of working with the body, preparing the 72 hours emergency preparedness kit, social skills, post-traumatic growth, and cognitive restructuring to manage toxic thoughts… I have received calls from former participants sharing how this information made their life better and enriched their ministry.
Informational social support also came from exchange by participants of helpful information like phone lines, helpful apps, methods for building peace, and some survival skills that have worked.
Appraisal social support: we have found appreciation from other members very helpful in giving a positive and larger meaning to one’s ministry, life, suffering and even of dying. A religious had been considering herself a coward, but after hearing other members appreciate her courage to stay in a conflict zone in order to give support to vulnerable people there, she started seeing in herself what her group members were seeing in her. She saw the courageous woman, the hero, and the modern prophet. The meaning of her sacrifice was highlighted and made evident and obvious. With this understanding, she decided to stay with the poor vulnerable people as long as it was still possible, reasonable and helpful. Through this sharing, she also empowered the other group members to get more zealous in reaching out more towards others, to outgrow the limitedness of being overconcerned with self-preservation.
2. Some Lessons Learnt from Experience at
The ICOF Resilience Program
i). There is more healing in giving than in
receiving social support.
I learnt this from a person who shared his experience of being abducted and was forced to live in a very difficult situation for over a month. He describes terrible experiences there, like, being starved, beaten, humiliated and fainting. The experience of being abducted; when it did not kill him, made him stronger in advocating for peace in his region. He shares that what made him go on was his love and concern for his local church, for parishioners, and for fellow abductees that he was doing everything to help them to be as well as they could in those terrible conditions. His great love included even the people who abducted him in a way that he was trying to understand them empathically. This love of even the enemy is a seed for the healing communion and peace that he is trying to bring about in that conflict zone.
When a person’s focus is larger than themselves, intending to give social support to others, they can be more resilient than if they were only focused in receiving social support.
ii). Importance of spirituality and of religion.
It is a bit in fashion now to talk of being spiritual but not religious. Do we really still need religion? Can religion be of any use in witnessing a universal communion today when in fact it is at the base of most of our conflict today?
I have met religious and priests who are ministering in difficult zones despite there having been wounded and the possibility of being martyred. They are driven by a reality that is beyond themselves and their self-reservation. They have been healed of self-centredness, and so even the fear of real danger of death is no longer controlling them much. But what is it that leads them to this level of healing? It is spirituality that is connectedness to God, and through God, to others, including their enemies. I have seen that these people have learnt and keep repairing this spiritual connectedness through their faith and religious activities like their prayers and liturgy. Good religion therefore should help us become more spiritual, more virtuous, and reach out more to form rather than break the universal communion, even when it is difficult.
iii). We should aim at being healed healers, in
addition to being wounded healers.
After listening to the stories from the conflict zones, I saw that there are 4 main quadrants of being and of impacting others in our ministry. I have noticed that healed healers are more fruitful in the prophetic witness for the universal communion we are reflecting on.
Conclusion
The wounders, who are perpetrators in the conflict zones, need healing and moving towards being healed healers. healed, they will build rather than break universal communion. But they need leadership in that healing path. The religious and priests, at their best, have been witnessing by words and deeds this spirituality of universal communion, beyond warring conflict.
Through its Resilience Programs, ICOF Program has been providing opportunities for its participants to experience this healing communion among people from different cultural and national backgrounds. They live it by giving and receiving from each other Social Support. The shared Social Support enables them to experience healing.
The healing they experience ushers and anchors them into the quadrant of healed healers, beyond just being wounded healers. We believe that the healed healers will feel courageous enough to prophetically and prudently reach out even to the other camp of the current enemy, build bridges, in order to universalise the communion that they witness by word and deeds. And this will lead to the healing of the conflict zones.
| Influence on Others
Identity |
Wounding Others
|
Healing Others |
| Healed | 1. “Healed” wounder
– Projection of one’s woundedness – Wounding seen as healing |
2. Healed healer
– Easter energy, thriving – Eg. Risen Lord giving peace, joy, forgiveness – Post-Traumatic growth |
| Wounded | 3. Wounded Wounder
– Vengeful energy – E.g. cycle of violence / abuse |
4. Wounded Healer[2]
– Good Friday energy – E.g. Wounded Jesus |
[1] Among the major authorities in the Social Support theory are Don Drennon-Gala and Francis Cullen, who were researching how to reduce or even prevent juvenile delinquency. The communion brought by Social Support has been proven to bring healing and to prevent many kinds of difficulties. ICOF Program insists a lot in creating an ambiance where social support is lived practically in order to bring the healing, renewal and resilience in its participants.
[2] Henri Nouwen’s book, The Wounded Healer, is a beautiful portrait of the person who heals others thanks to her or his having gone through being wounded. The notion of the wounded healer is one of what Carl Jung termed as “archetypes,” prevalent in many of the healthy religions and cultures. The Greeks even had a mythical character, the Chiron, who was a very good healer because he understood empathically the pain of his patients since he had a wound that will never heal, and, being divine, he would not die, so he was condemned to suffer the wound eternally. The woundedness of the wounded healer is a major resource for his being a healer. Growing into the healed healer will enable this wounded healer to do even better in his healing ministry. They surely have some healing happened, making them well enough to attend to those needing their healing ministry. Healed healers are not denying their pain and suffering, they only allow it to continue being transformed. By acknowledging their being healed, they are acknowledging their woundedness, a state from which they are healing.
[1] Henri Nouwen’s book, The Wounded Healer, is a beautiful portrait of the person who heals others thanks to her or his having gone through being wounded. The notion of the wounded healer is one of what Carl Jung termed as “archetypes,” prevalent in many of the healthy religions and cultures. The Greeks even had a mythical character, the Chiron, who was a very good healer because he understood empathically the pain of his patients since he had a wound that will never heal, and, being divine, he would not die, so he was condemned to suffer the wound eternally. The woundedness of the wounded healer is a major resource for his being a healer. Growing into the healed healer will enable this wounded healer to do even better in his healing ministry. They surely have some healing happened, making them well enough to attend to those needing their healing ministry. Healed healers are not denying their pain and suffering, they only allow it to continue being transformed. By acknowledging their being healed, they are acknowledging their woundedness, a state from which they are healing.
