Combining justice and embodied practice in Mexico

Katia Ornelas, a STAR Practitioner from Mexico, is an attorney with a Masters degree in Conflict Transformation and Peacebuilding at the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding (CJP) at EMU (2013), as well as a yoga and meditation practitioner and instructor.  Katia has experience in the transformation of Mexico’s criminal justice system and the defense of human rights and women’s rights. She is now working with families affected by escalating violence in Mexico.

Mexico’s violence has been characterized by disappearances, organized crime-related killings, and torture and extra-judicial killings by police and military forces, along with limited justice response by public security and criminal justice officials, and threats and attacks against human rights defenders and journalists.

Families affected by the violence have organized as collectives to respond to their losses. Working with a wide network of national and international organizations including the Centro de Colaboración Cívica or Center for Civic Collaboration (CCC), Katia is consulting with the colectivos in a national process to identify key elements of potential legislation to address disappearance.

Katia shared, “My training at CJP and the STAR program has been fundamental in this work. It is a challenge to create moments for ritual and body-based activities in a legislation-driven, time-limited consultation within a context of a lot of injustice, frustration and needs. And yet these brief moments are also a great space not only for the families, but also for the human rights workers supporting this journey.”

The Body Keeps the Score

In July Katie had the chance to spend a week in a course entitled, “Trauma, Body and the Brain: Restoring the Capacity for Rhythm and Play.” Bessel van der Kolk, author of The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind and Body in the Healing of Trauma, co-facilitated with Licia Sky and Steve Gross, artists whose talents range from singing to poetry to group attunement to play facilitation.

The first few hours of the course had no Powerpoint or handouts. We started by breathing together and connecting in music and movement with the 80-large group. This opening framed one of the key messages of the week: the importance of “becoming aware of our inner experience and learning to befriend what is going on inside ourselves” and the “need to feel physiologically in sync with the people around you.”

The Body Keeps the Score is anchored in van der Kolk’s experiences with patients – and creative recovery strategies ranging from body awareness to EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) to yoga to drama-based approaches and neurofeedback – at his Trauma Center (in Boston, Massachusetts). It also highlights the landmark longitudinal Adverse Childhood Experience (ACE) study, which illustrated the disastrous consequences of early childhood trauma on long-term health and social life. 

Van der Kolk’s work plays a major role in our STAR curriculum on the impacts of trauma on the body and brain. He underscored in the course: “Trauma is not the story of what happened in the past but the residue that is still in the body.” His suggested resolution: “allow yourself to know what you know.” Through play, getting in sync with others in breath and movement, and deep discussion of how trauma “keeps us from being fully alive in the now” by impacting the brain and the body, we began to know a little bit more of what we know.

Have you encountered any recent examples of new insight or pedagogy that would be helpful to the STAR learning community? Please let us know: email us at star@emu.edu.

How do we build and nourish trauma-informed organizations?

This question was at the heart of Professor Barry Hart’s 2015 Summer Peacebuilding Institute course, “Strategies for Trauma-Informed Organizations.” Participant origins included Egypt, Nigeria, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Palestine, Uganda and the US. This diverse community of learners joined the facilitation team – including STAR practitioner Daria Nashat, and several practitioners who Skyped in from locations from Kenya to California. They engaged in identifying existing resources and writing policies to bring back to strengthen their organizations’ “trauma wisdom.”  (Professor Barry Hart often asks about how “trauma-wise” we are.) They also drew upon the Antares Foundation’s guidelines for good practice published in its 2012 report, “Managing stress in humanitarian workers.”

Reflecting on some of the learnings that week, US participant (and STAR assistant trainer) Angela Dickey highlights the damage that can result when US entities, both non-government and governmental, operating in other countries treat their local and expatriate staff differently in the midst of crisis – a not trauma-wise policy, in her estimation. She remembers rich conversations with classmates about ways US organizations could improve their relationships by implementing trauma awareness strategies. “We need to see the connection between employee needs and our policy outcomes. We need to work it [trauma awareness] into hiring, training and promotions,” she says.

This observation was borne out during one class, when Professor Hart noted one organization he thought made a positive impact in implementing trauma awareness and resilience strategies for their own staff members. Yet the participants from this organization remarked, “We hadn’t even thought about how to weave this into our partnerships.” They left the course thinking more about how to expand the reach of what was already helpful internally by crossing boundaries to partner organizations.

Strategies for Trauma Informed Organizations will be offered again during SPI 2016, with Barry Hart and Mikhala Lantz-Simmons.  Meanwhile, we would love to hear your suggestions or stories about how you are embedding trauma and resilience wisdom into your organizations and relationships. Email us at star@emu.edu.

Translating Village STAR

In 2007, Elaine Zook Barge developed a consolidated, more visually-oriented version of the STAR curriculum, entitled Village STAR.  A series of new translations of Village STAR have been created this year.

After a recent STAR training with Syrians in Lebanon, the MCC Lebanon team worked with local colleagues to translate Village STAR into modern standard Arabic. 

The USAID VISTAS Project funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), in South Sudan, has translated  and re-illustrated - Village STAR as Morning Star, designed to support the development of an ambitious South Sudanese trauma awareness and resilience program by the same name. STAR practitioner Shiphrah Mutungi is now directing that program.

Learning Journeys

So far this year, we have facilitated 10 formal STAR trainings and a variety of shorter presentations. Just since our April e-zine, we’ve held STAR Level I trainings:

• with academics and practitioners at Palo Alto University in California,
• at EMU’s Summer Peacebuilding Institute,
• in Lancaster, Pennsylvania,
• at the United States Institute of Peace (USIP) in Washington, D.C., and
• in a second pilot STAR I training with civilian and military participants in Fayetteville, North Carolina.

We also facilitated shorter presentations at the Mennonite Church USA Convention and Mennonite World Conference, as well as the Virginia State Operated Programs’ Conference for educators, administrators, counselors and workers within the juvenile justice system. 

Canine companion: At our recent USIP training, we had our first service dog STAR participant, Falima. Accompanying a member of the Denver Police Force to the training, Falima worked with survivors of the Denver theater shooting as part of their trauma healing efforts.

Mennonites and military: Reflecting on her work with Mennonites and the U.S. military this summer, Elaine felt deeply accepted by and connected to both groups: “No matter our identity or profession, our bodies and brains and spirits respond alike to traumatic events and it is so energizing to hear how persons across the spectrum leave with new tools for addressing trauma.”

She shares the following energizing feedback:

• “I immediately shared what I learned with my family and my battle buddies.” (Fayetteville participant post-training)
• “I have decided to use the finger-hold illustration when I preach this coming Sunday on Psalm 102.” (post-Mennonite World Conference workshop)

Walking and talking: During one of these STAR trainings, assistant trainer Rachel Goldberg suggested participants walk and talk after one of the films rather than sitting to discuss it, and this worked very well, affirming digestion of heavy content (like heavy food!) is easier when we move our bodies.

SPI 2016 preview: a suite of trauma and resilience oriented courses

In the next few weeks, the Summer Peacebuilding Institute (SPI) 2016 course listing will be announced. Here’s a preview of trauma and resilience related courses (in alphabetical order). Please pass the word along to friends and colleagues…we would love to see you at SPI.

Body-Mind Practices for Building Resilience
Resilience-Based Development
STAR I
STAR II
Strategies for Trauma-Informed Organizations

Mark Your Calendars!

STAR I - October 26-30, 2015, United States Institute of Peace, Washington, DC

STAR II - November 16-20, 2015, EMU, Harrisonburg, Va. (currently full; waitlist available)

STAR I - February 8-12, 2016, EMU, Harrisonburg, Va.

STAR II - May 9-17, 2016, EMU, Harrisonburg, Va. (This training is part of the Summer Peacebuilding Institute, registration will be available here).

STAR I - May 30-June 3, 2016, EMU, Harrisonburg, Va. (This training is part of the Summer Peacebuilding Institute, registration will be available here).

STAR II - November 14-18, 2016, EMU, Harrisonburg, Va.

About STAR

Strategies for Trauma Awareness and Resilience (STAR) offers research-supported trainings for helping and healing professions whose work brings them in contact with populations dealing with historic or current trauma: mental health, medical and legal professionals; clergy; educators; lay helpers; peacebuilders; humanitarian aid and development workers and more.

The interactive trainings integrate neurobiology, conflict transformation, restorative justice and spirituality. The curriculum is adaptable in many contexts. It provides processes and tools for preventing escalating cycles of violence while enhancing health and resilience.

In addition to the Level I workshops, specialized trainings are available for those working with youth, returning veterans and historical harms. In the last decade, STAR has trained over 7,000 people, and the ripple effects have touched many more. The training has been described as invaluable, dynamic and life-changing.

To learn about STAR, download our complimentary e-book.

To sign up for a training, go to www.emu.edu/star.

To inquire about a training in your organization, e-mail us at star@emu.edu.