Welcome to our latest news blog. In the UK, children have just gone back to school and so has Tortu! You can read how he gets on in our new story with updated notes and visual anxiety aids designed for teachers. It is available to download for free from his very own website: www.meettortu.org.

Sadly, the pandemic forced us to cancel or postpone all the training trips we had planned for last year.  Thankfully, our special projects have continued we especially want to celebrate the work of the Gaza child trauma clinic, run by Mohammed El Sharef and Haitham Shamia, which has now provided CATT treatment and given follow-up support to 69 children. Take a look at their video to find out more about the challenges faced by children in Gaza and what Mohammed and Haitham are doing. Also, Elias Byaruhanga and Umar Candia have continued to support and train workers in refugee camps in the west and north of Uganda. Here levels of anxiety and trauma have been aggravated by restrictions on travel, curfews and food insecurity caused by the inability to visit fields and other places of work.

Whilst other volunteers were unable to travel, they have spent their time developing our online materials and resources, so we now have a packed programme of activity for 21/22. Three Spanish trainers are now ready to begin online training of Children & War’s Teaching for Recovery Technique to up to 45 child care workers across Colombia. It’s a joy to be working with UK Charity Children Change Colombia on this project.  Fundraising is being led by Zara Bracegirdle.

Dr Ghalia Al Alsha, based in Jordan, has rolled out the online anxiety and resilience training programme put together and piloted by our Clinical Trustee, Victoria Burch.  She has already trained, in Arabic, 41 psycho-social counsellors and psychologists working with child refugees for three NGOs across the Middle East, and has more courses planned.  We are also pleased to have just begun work on a training programme for teachers and childcare workers in the Yemen, which we hope will be delivered soon to help alleviate the terrible suffering of children there. 

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