This project provides a novel community-based narrative approach to psychosocial care, trauma, and reintegration that would help children and young people(CYP) who 1 at risk of joining gangs and 2 were victims of forced recruitment, to gain access to the resources and skills they need to deal with a variety of traumatic situations and stigmas. The project will enhance positive bonds within the community and change situations of vulnerability and criminality through narratives of resilience.
According to the National Center for Historical Memory from 1958 to 2020, more than 17,860 minors have been recruited by armed groups. According to the Colombian Social Services in the last 5 years over 15,000 CYP (ages 14 and 17) have gone through restoration of rights facilities. The vast majority of these children and young people have been disproportionately affected by violence, poverty and exclusion to health disparities with already limited access to mental and physical health services.
This systemic approach will allow children to regain a sense of safety and heal their social and emotional wounds, integrating a model of narrative therapy through the production of content by the young people. This is in order to externalize traumatic situations and encourage the construction of 'alternative-life' narratives, which go beyond traumatic experiences and those related to crime and war. Audiovisual art and production will be used as ways of dissemination, such as podcasts and radio
To guarantee the sustainability of the project, workshops and events will be conducted with the private and public sector to present the results of the novel community-based narrative approach to psychosocial care. This approach will be shared with psychosocial support teams that already work with the government program for family wellbeing and children's rights. In this way, the lessons learnt could be replicated in other restoration of rights facilities and youth demobilized centres.
This project has provided additional documentation in a PDF file (projdoc.pdf).
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