Healing and Human Rights: A Blog by the Center for Victims of Torture
Showing all blog posts in Refugees
While news reports have focused on refugees desperately seeking safety and stability in Europe, other refugees who have been resettled are working to integrate into new communities such as St. Cloud, Minnesota. Earlier this winter, CVT facilitated a training and networking session in St. Cloud for professionals who work with refugee communities and for the newcomers themselves.
“I am suffering and sad.” This is one of hundreds of comments made by torture survivors as they complete CVT’s intake process. In each of CVT’s International Services projects, one of the first activities in which a survivor participates is a thorough intake interview. These intake assessments are important to building the therapeutic relationship and providing us with a better understanding of our clients.
Rights and freedoms are the focus of this year’s Human Rights Day, according to the UN. Those rights and freedoms—freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear – are the basis of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which applies to all human beings. But this year in particular, that last one, “freedom from fear,” gets stuck in my throat. Because we’re not all free from fear these days. Not by a long shot.
Valerie Spencer, CVT board member, reflects on the courage and resilience of women torture survivors she met on a recent visit to CVT Jordan.
CVT helps children cope with the challenges of life in a refugee camp after escaping Eritrea.
The CVT Dadaab team held an off-site staff self-care retreat, which allowed some counselors to leave the camp for the first time.
Curt Goering, CVT executive director, notes the rigorous screening processes refugees must pass before being resettled into the United States.
In our international projects, our healing work for torture and war trauma survivors is conducted through group counseling. Groups typically meet for 10 weeks. This is the tenth in a series of posts by Veronica Laveta as she follows the counseling group cycle in Jordan. Veronica Laveta is CVT’s clinical advisor for the Jordan project.
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