How we got here?

Hi I'm Olga Nguyen, Nonviolent Communication Trainer with cnvc.org. Over the years I have offered trainings, mentoring and supervisions to Ukrainian trainers and facilitators. At the end of 2021-start of 2022, I was taking bookings for my Resonant Healing Practitioner training programme (which I'm running in Russian language with the blessing of the programme's author, Sarah Peyton), whereby the participants train to offer trauma healing. Little did my participants and I know that our lives would be irrevocably changed on 24 February, when Russian government started the war on Ukraine.

What I did not expect was that all the Ukrainian programme's participants would want to continue with their training plans - despite the war! I am humbled and bowled over by their dedication to their work. Despite some of them getting bombed, others having to seek shelter and some having had to leave the country for the safety of their family, they attended all six days of the training. And I am so touched and moved that they started applying the skills they received straight away - in the support groups they lead as volunteers, in one-to-one support they provide as volunteers- to adults and kids in Ukraine and to those who had to leave for EU and have been traumatised by war. Despite the circumstances, they completed Part 1 with flying colours! And the impact of their work is already spreading.

You can read it for yourself below, in the words of one of my CNVC CT colleagues who participated in the programme, Pavlo.

Why am I sharing this with you?

In the normal course of events, sans war, our next step would be to decide to go onto Part 2. The participants would start supporting others with their Resonant Healing trauma healing skills. And they would receive monthly supervisions where they could take any questions about their trauma healing work. Plus there would be monthly webinars focusing on trauma healing to update their knowledge. After a few months of this, they would draw up their portfolios on the basis of their work, and would get detailed feedback. This feedback they would be incorporating into their trauma healing skills during the Part 2 six-day Intensive in Sept 2022, which would complete Part 2.

However, because of the war, literally, overnight, like many other Ukrainians, our programme participants lost their stable and secure incomes, and some even lost their homes. And this is why, on their behalf, I am contacting you - would you be willing to donate to us and thus help these seven people to continue with their trauma healing training? So that traumatised Ukrainian people in Ukraine and further afield can benefit from access to trauma healing in their native tongues.

How will your money be used?

We will use all donations to fund scholarships for the Ukrainians for Resonance Healing Programme Part 2 (from May to Sept 2022), so they can complete Part 2 of the programme, whilst serving traumatised populations of Ukrainian people.

If you have seen the photos of the atrocities in Bucha, Irpin, Hostomel, or you are involved with Ukrainian forced migrant kids in EU, you may also believe that the world needs this healing!

If you want this healing to be accessible to people in Ukraine and those who left Ukraine for EU, and are willing to support Ukraine and people traumatised by war, we'd be grateful for any donations via here (ANY amount helps and will get us closer to our target amount).

In the words of our participants...

Pavlo Kozeletskyi, Ukraine/Vienna, certifiedNonviolent Communication Trainer cnvc.org, Facilitator and Psychologist:

“The first part of this course became a supportive springboard for me.

I had been planning to attend this course even before the war began, and I had been hoping that the course would offer me the opportunity to develop my professional skills and ways of offering support.

After the war started I was unsure as to whether I could begin studying, since I ended up having to take a huge number of difficult decisions and undergo some traumatic events.

Yet now I am very grateful to have had the opportunity to attend this programme because, during the first part, I felt that I was coming out of a freeze. Here I found a place where I could share my own inner experiences and practice Nonviolent Communication with people who were likewise living through a war.

My colleagues and I lead volunteer support and response groups for Ukrainians who are both currently in Ukraine and in constant danger, occasionally under bombardment, and also those who fled abroad in search of safety for themselves and their children. During the course, I noticed how new skills were being integrated into my work.

In addition, the possibility of being in a community of people with whom I have shared reality and hold together our deepest human values became a stabilising presence for me; it gave me the strength to keep moving forward and to support other people.

Now, I find myself caught between two worlds: no longer in Ukraine, but not yet in Austria, because my life, my practice, my work and my belongings have all remained in Ukraine, while my family and I are in Vienna… Therefore it is extremely important to me to continue with this programme, not only to continue improving my own skills, but also in order to receive further support myself, to be able to give it to others.

With warmth and gratitude

Pavlo - Pavlo Kozeletskyi facebook.com/kozeletskyi.pavlo ”