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Hi! I'm Sasha, and I'm fundraising for a mobile trauma counseling center for former child soldiers in northern Uganda.
With your help, we can help over 1,000 former child soldiers get the trauma counseling they desperately need.
I lived and worked in Uganda for 3 years & was incredibly moved by listening to former child soldiers who told me their harrowing stories. 1 in 3 boys and 1 in 6 girls were abducted as child soldiers in northern Uganda, over 25,000 in total.
I had to do something, and I founded Grassroots Reconciliation Group to help, together with Kasper Agger.
Now we're led by a former child soldier himself, Wilfred Komakech. Learn his incredibly inspiring story in this video:
Today, I'm thrilled to launch a campaign to create a mobile trauma counseling center. It will enable us to reach over 1,000 war survivors through trauma counseling.
Building one has been a dream of ours for years. The former child soldiers and war survivors we serve have severe trauma. They were forced to kill and witness people being killed by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA).
This has led to severe Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and suicide rates, which are more than double the national average.
Please consider donating to support our dream of a mobile trauma counseling center. The budget will cover:
- Training and stipends for 20 community counselors: $4,000
- Monthly group and individual therapy by our professional counselor for one year: $6,000
- Public outreach to 10 new communities in remote Lamwo on the Uganda/South Sudan border, so that the most traumatized war survivors know where to receive counseling: $6,000
- Mentoring and support to community counselors: $4,000
Our trauma counseling projects with former child soldiers have had tremendous success to date:
- Reducing PTSD nightmares. 95% of former child soldiers reported having fewer to no more traumatic nightmares after participating in trauma counseling and community theater projects.
- Reducing stigma. 98% of former child soldiers reported having better relationships with their communities, many of whom were stigmatized because of their abductions.
We now want to build on that success and take it to the next level. A mobile trauma counseling center will enable us to do that. The center will help us:
- Reach the most vulnerable people. The most traumatized people have difficulty leaving their villages, so the mobile center will provide counseling very close to where they live.
- Train community trauma counselors. We will be able to train local caregivers in trauma healing and counseling, who are the first point of contact for people with PTSD in communities.
- We decided to create a mobile center rather than building a permanent structure because a) otherwise the most remote, neediest people wouldn’t be able to get help; b) it saves on costs.
Meet Betty, who received trauma counseling support from GRG.
Betty was abducted by the LRA rebels at age 13 and raped before getting her first period. She was forced to be a child soldier and sex slave to a commander for 9 years. She finally escaped but had to hide among dead bodies to conceal herself, further traumatizing her. “It haunts me to this day, and I’m still not able to conceive,” she said.
Betty was on the verge of suicide when she joined a GRG trauma counseling project in which 40 former former child soldiers like her are receiving counseling and becoming counselors themselves.
“But now I’ve become a trauma counselor with GRG. It has made me feel special,” she said.
“Becoming a counselor has given me perspective, and now I can relate to other people with the same trauma and help them. I’m also farming with the GRG group. We also sing and dance together. I’m getting used to seeing things from a different perspective,” she said.
Read more about Betty’s story at www.grassrootsgroup.org
All donations are tax-deductible in the U.S.
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Grassroots Reconciliation Group
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