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Guitars for refugee-children from Chechnya

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Guitars for refugee-children from Chechnya

The conflict between Russia and Chechnya From the beginning of the second Tjetsjenian war in September 1999 around 200.000 Tsjetenians fled to the neighbouring country Ingoesjetia. The number of inhabitants of Ingoesjetia has almost been doubled by this influx. Medical care and infrastructure are not sufficient to cope with this amount of people.

The refugees live in tent camps, public spaces or with local families, often a large number of people have to share a small space. The children are often in a dire state. The awful things they witnessed and the flight from their familiar surroundings often traumatised them. Moreover they live with parents who are traumatised themselves and can't give their children enough attention because they have to provide a roof and enough food for the whole family.

Project
The traumacenter 'Little Star' that is supported by WarChild since 1998 was originally based in Grozny until the recent war destroyed it. The psychologists left the centre when the bombing in Grossly became to heavy to stay. They - themselves refugees as well - continued their work from 1999 from nine tents in four big refugee camps in Ingoesjetia. They work in close contact with the children's parents and teachers. Goal is to help the children adapt to their new surroundings and to help them recognise and handle negative emotions and stress. This is done by activities as games, drawing workshops, role-playing, theatre and a large number of relaxing exercises.

There are a creative therapist, eight psychologists and 45 social workers and teachers working for the "little star" project. Each psychologist together with two social workers has three groups of on average 14 children a day. In total there are 21 locations where they work monthly with 800 children.

The staff works in extremely stressful conditions. Once a week the local staff comes together for a training of its own, in the office in Ingoesjetia. New methods are discussed and experiences shared. War Child organises four extra training a year by experienced psychologists and creative therapists from the Netherlands. This way the local staff gets some extra support and advice from external specialists.
In the group for boys from 18 to 22 years there was a lot of interest for a musicproject, but there were not enough instruments. Moments of Joy paid for 10 guitars and some smaller instruments; the visiting Dutch psychologists will take all of these when they next visit the camps.
TOTAL € 1500,--