Aid to the Philippines after Typhoon Yolanda

Using Expressive Arts to Support Mental Health

IsraAID has been conducting mental health and psycho-social support activities in the Philippines since Typhoon Yolanda hit in November 2013, killing over 6,000 people, injuring more than 27,000 and displacing approximately 4 million. Since then, IsraAID has been helping women, men and, particularly, children affected by the disaster to cope with the stress, trauma and shock they have experienced as they recover and rebuild their lives.

In the past year, IsraAID Philippines has brought its program using the expressive arts - visual art, movement, drama and music - in training for mental health support workers to Maasin City. This both provides new tools for working with people suffering trauma and helps caregivers themselves better express and understand their own feelings. These techniques can then have a huge impact on the capacity of the community as a whole to overcome trauma and, ultimately, build a better future. So far, after training a core team of 25 teachers, the program has been brought to 4 schools in Maasin City, reaching 160 students.

The Impact of IsraAID’s Preventing Gender-Based Violence and Human Trafficking program

Jelove teaches social work at Maasin City College in the Philippines. After training with IsraAID on how to identify and intervene in cases of Gender-Based Violence and Human Trafficking, she has become passionate about applying the new tools she has learnt to improve the lives and welfare of clients in the field.

“I used to think it was enough to simply teach my students theory in the classroom. Using the compassionate listening and forensic interviewing skills from IsraAID’s training, I’ve been able to reach out to my students. They said themselves: we always talk about empathy in class, but we had never experienced being listened to and able to express ourselves freely before during our studies.

Thanks to IsraAID’s training, my students and I can do more fieldwork this summer, going into the community and handling cases with confidentiality and empathy.”

Look out for future updates from IsraAID Philippines. Thank you for your ongoing support!