A manual and workshop are based on the findings of a participatory research
study of the Befriending Program at the Canadian Centre for Victims of Torture
(CCVT).
The training manual includes a facilitator's manual and a participant's workbook.
The manual is based on a training program that was developed and delivered to
Host volunteers who work with newcomers across Ontario. The two-day workshop
sensitized participants to the issues faced by victims of torture.
The authors describe how experiencing torture, war and other forms of organized
violence results in deep disruption of human ties. The fundamental issue in
refugee resettlement is how to reconstruct with refugees the reality and capacity
for interpersonal ties and how to foster an alternative web of relations in
the host community. They argue that the host community is equally challenged
to make room for the newcomers. Volunteers and other linking agents are therefore
essential to the possibility of building community with survivors. This, of
course, is highly intricate work. Understanding how ties can be rebuilt at the
interpersonal and community levels and fostering these are crucially important.
A feature of CCVT’s Befriending Program is that it fosters interpersonal
ties as an objective in itself and as a mediating link between survivors and
the host community.
In the manual, the range of contents is clustered around central themes: the
Befriending Relationship, How Befriending is sustained by the Staff and by the
Environment of the Agency, and the broader Web of Relations in the Community.
Each thematic area includes several issues or modules for discussion. The first
part of the workshop is highly reflective and builds toward the second part
which is more pragmatically oriented.
Format - The document is available for download in Adobe Acrobat
format - 966 KB, 60 pages.
Language - English
refugees, victims of torture and trauma, academic reports
