Healing Trauma in Syrian Children – Program for Parents

Children and War - help parents help their children with us! Our goal is to provide Syrian parents in refugee camps with comprehensible information about trauma and what they can do to support their children.

  • Painting by Marie Sibai

  • Pictures from refugee children

  • Painting by Luis Cedras

  • Handmade diary

  • Photographs from the camps

  • With children in a refugee camp in Serbia

  • With children in a refugee camp in Serbia

  • With children in a refugee camp in Serbia

  • Collage poster from the refugee children

EUR 8,876
pledged of EUR 4,744

187%

187% completed

403 contributors pledged

Community, Education

Praha, Hlavní město Praha, Česko

All or nothing. Project finished on Apr 5, 2018 at 10:37.

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IMPORTANT NOTE: THANKS TO YOUR KIND SUPPORT, WE HAVE BEEN ABLE TO COLLECT120 000 CZK IN ONLY A DAY! SO NICE! THANK YOU TO ALL! As mentioned further, we will use thIis amount for the translation of the book, the creation of the 30-page handbook, its translation and proofreading. If we collect more, we will pay for print, transport costs, some costs on the comics or appropriate training for the cooperating colleagues from the refugee camps. And if we collect even more, we will pay some of the necessary operating costs of our nonprofit organization, which so far works mostly from volunteer work.

How it began

Since 2015 we have been trying to find ways to support people escaping wars and injustice. At the beginning, we were helping to collect clothes at a school, to organize a lecture about fear or to sort donated clothing in a warehouse in Serbia. The establishing of our organization and this project was inspired by the work of A. Elkhani and the Department of Psychology in Manchester, who distributed a one-page leaflet on child trauma and basic advice with bread to Syrian parents living in refugee camps. It was unbelievable that almost 40% of the parents responded to the leaflet with thanks or questions. It is really an exceptional response rate showing that regardless of their own trauma and suffering, parents want to know  what they can do for their children. This was important. If only we could provide the parents with more information on how they can help their children. The book for parents of traumatized children already existed. It can be translated, an excerpt with the most important information can be made and translated and a we can make picture-stories. We have obtained the copyrights, full support from the book's authors and the first financial contributions. We are creating the trauma information handbook and promotional texts, talk about the project in public. Here, we would like to ask for your support and cooperation:

What is our goal?


Support in refugee camps currently focuses primarily on meeting the basic needs. The people who live there are no longer in danger, they get some basic food and have a place to sleep. However, they also need help as to overcoming the horrors they experienced and help as to starting over again. It is very important to say that traumatized children CAN be helped, even in the current difficult living conditions.

Details

Imagine your child is suffering and you do not know what to do and how to help him/her.

Based on a report on mental health of Syrian children, conducted by Save the Children Organization released in 2017,  it has been found that 84% of adults and almost all children found ongoing bombing and shelling as the number one cause of psychological stress, 89% said that children´s behaviour has become more fearful and nervous, 80% said that children and adolescents have become more aggressive, 71% children suffer from frequent bedwetting and involuntary urination (both common symptoms of toxic stress and post-traumatic stress disorder, 2/3 children have lost a loved one/had their house bombed or shelled/suffered war-related injuries, 51% said adolescents are turning to drugs to cope with the stress, 48% of adults have seen  children who have lost the ability to speak or developed speech impediments, 49% said that children regularly or always have the feelings of grief or extreme sadness and 78% have these feelings at least some of the time.

All the parents in refugee camps face difficult changes in emotions and behavior of their children. Therefore, we would like to provide them, the closest to the children, with professional, yet simple and comprehensible information about what they can do to treat trauma in their children (and themselves, too). For this purpose, we are translating into Arabic the book Trauma Proofing Your Kids by P. Levine and M. Kline, written for the parents of traumatized children and caregivers. For those parents who do not have the capacity to read all 271 pages of the book, we are putting together a 30-page handbook, containing the most important and condensed information and a comics presenting the basic principles of working with trauma in pictures provided with a simple text in Arabic. We cooperate with non-profit Syrian organizations that operate on the Turkish-Syrian border and who will help us get the materials directly to the parents in the camps.

How can parents help traumatized children?

The book offers information, advice and activities that help children release the grip and energy of trauma. It was written in a way that the information it contains can be used by parents, educators and workers of various helping professions. This fact makes our project a unique one - at present, according to the information available, there is no parenting initiative that would guide parents to a systematical and independent trauma help for their children. The parents of traumatized children do not know what to do and how they can help.

The book Trauma-Proofing Your Kids focuses on the following topics:

- Steps to providing first aid for the prevention and healing of trauma

- Support to parents (information and techniques) to be able to calm down in difficult emotional situations

- Examples of therapeutic children's games and artistic activities, rhymes and pictures, healing stories

- Grief processing

- Assistance in catastrophic and mass disasters

- Therapeutic methods for specific situations

- Processing crisis situations in groups

- Activating groups and communities

Our intention is to distribute the above-mentioned materials (1,000 translated books and 10,000 information handbooks) in refugee camps in Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan, in cooperation with local organizations (we would like to try to initiate a parent group). For camp community leaders, we would also like to mediate the relevant minimum trainings.

What will we use your donations for?
 

If we collect 120,000 CZK, we will use it for book translation, the creation of the 30-page handbook, its translation and proof-reading. If we select more, we will pay for the printing, transport costs or the appropriate trainings for the cooperating colleagues from the refugee camps. And if we select even more, we will also cover some of the necessary operating costs of our nonprofit organization (such as the creation of websites), which so far mostly works from volunteer work.


Who are we?

We are a nonprofit organization, Czech People for Syria, z.s., that came into being in response to the refugee crisis, in order to find some effective ways to deal with the hopelessness and to make refugees' lives more tolerable and easier.


Why are we doing this?

We think that the children and parents can be helped and so we are trying.


 

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  • sold 136
    A smile and a thank you!

    If you support us with 200 CZK or more and you agree, we will write your name with a thank you on our website or one of the trauma materials we will be distributing in the refugee camps.

    Reward delivery: in a year after the Hithit project end

    EUR 7.91
    (CZK 200)
  • sold 55
    Photographs from refugee camps

    Touching and very human photos from the refugee camps in Idomeni and Lesvos and the journey towards a new home, made by photographer and activist Jana Plavec. The photographs are part of the Exhibition "I am a refugee".

    Reward delivery: on address, in half a year after the Hithit project end

    EUR 11.86
    (CZK 300)
  • remaining 21 from 24
    Trappist mustard

    The Trappists donated the mustard they produce in their monastery and promised to include our project in their prayers. We provided the package with a small original picture from refugee children.  Thank you on their behalf!
     

    Reward delivery: in a quarter after the Hithit project end

    EUR 11.86
    (CZK 300)
  • sold 71
    Pictures from refugee children

    Pictures from children from the refugee camps titled "What makes me happy". However, due to the frequent language barriers, other things might be found in the pictures.

    Reward delivery: on address, in a quarter after the Hithit project end

    EUR 19.77
    (CZK 500)
  • sold 27
    Fast course in reading Hebrew

    A 90-minute fast track course in reading Hebrew led by evangelical priest Mikulas Vymetal. "In 90 minutes I will teach you to read (not to understand) Hebrew."

    Reward delivery: on address, in a quarter after the Hithit project end

    EUR 19.77
    (CZK 500)
  • remaining 50 from 50
    Svíčka pro Sýrii II

    On Sunday, April 8, we are giving a workshop on making bee wax candles in Inbaze (Legerova 50) to support this project. Come and make and decorate a candle, meet and talk to people who are interested in this topic and want to help! Or buy our candle! Thank you or see you!

    Reward delivery: on address, in half a year after the Hithit project end

    EUR 19.77
    (CZK 500)
  • sold 2
    Books with a thank you

    Books donated by individuals and  cooperating publishers, ie St. Paul´s Publishing House and Dar Ibn Rushd Publishing House. We have received one or two copies of most of the donated books, so it is not possible to choose the titles. Thank you for your understanding.



     

    Reward delivery: on address, in a quarter after the Hithit project end

    EUR 27.67
    (CZK 700)
  • remaining 3 from 20
    Expert publications with inscriptions

    The book "Child Endangered" by  Peter Pöthe, a specialist in healing trauma, published in 1996, in Czech.

    Reward delivery: on address, in a quarter after the Hithit project end

    EUR 27.67
    (CZK 700)
  • remaining 2 from 6
    New sweet honey

    We ran out of the honey from Kroměříž, but immediately somebody sent us an offer of giving his honey from Litoměřice. Thanks a lot!

    Reward delivery: on address, in half a year after the Hithit project end

    EUR 27.67
    (CZK 700)
  • remaining 5 from 5
    Candle for Syria

    We have asked for support the Carmel of Saint Joseph, wherein the nuns make candles. A reply came soon, saying that at the moment only one of the nuns makes candles. However, they would like to support us and are able to make 5 of them. Here they are :).

    Reward delivery: on address, in half a year after the Hithit project end

    EUR 31.63
    (CZK 800)
  • sold 10
    Illustrations from Prague College Design Students

    Prague College Design students are creating images to be used in our picture book explaining the most essential principles of trauma work. We will select the best ones for you.

    Reward delivery: on address, in a quarter after the Hithit project end

    EUR 39.53
    (CZK 1,000)
  • sold 13
    Collage poster made from children´s pictures

    A collage poster made from the pictures from refugee children living in the Principovac Camp on the Serbian-Hungarian boarder.

    Reward delivery: on address, in half a year after the Hithit project end

    EUR 39.53
    (CZK 1,000)
  • sold 2
    Dinner with the founding members

    Dinner with the founding members of Czech People for Syria, z.s. We will select a pleasant restaurant and gladly answer all your questions about the project or the situation in Syria. The conversation can be held in Czech or English. Conversation creates the world.

    Reward delivery: in half a year after the Hithit project end

    EUR 197.67
    (CZK 5,000)
  • sold 2
    Our trauma picture book with an inscription by Magda Vasaryova

    Our picture book on the healing of trauma with short descriptions in Arabic

    The book will be inscripted by Mrs. Magda Vašáryová, an extraordinary woman, actress, diplomat, civil servant and politician.

    Reward delivery: in over a year after the Hithit project end

    EUR 395.34
    (CZK 10,000)
  • remaining 2 from 2
    Paintings and pictures

    Paintings by artists such as Luis Cedras from Costa Rica or Marie Sibai from Syria.

    Reward delivery: on address, in half a year after the Hithit project end

    EUR 1,186.01
    (CZK 30,000)
  • Sold out!!
    Sweet home-made honey

    Home-made honey from Kroměříž. Sweeter than other kinds, because of the giving part.

    Reward delivery: on address, in a quarter after the Hithit project end

    EUR 27.67
    (CZK 700)
  • Sold out!!
    Bags, hand-painted by Syrian women

    Cloth bags, handpainted with love by Syrian mothers.

    Reward delivery: on address, in half a year after the Hithit project end

    EUR 31.63
    (CZK 800)
  • Sold out!!
    Therapy sessions

    Therapy sessions with an SE therapist who works in a way presented in the translated materials, thus interconnecting the mind and body and releasing the energy of traumatic and otherwise difficult life events.
     

    Reward delivery: on address, in half a year after the Hithit project end

    EUR 39.53
    (CZK 1,000)
  • Sold out!!
    Handmade diary

    Beautiful handmade diary donated by Atelier Radu.

    Reward delivery: on address, in a quarter after the Hithit project end

    EUR 79.07
    (CZK 2,000)