Children
Begin To Unlearn
Some Lessons
By Urban Hamid
05 July, 2006
Inter
Press Service
BEIRUT, Aug 5 (IPS)
- "Rockets landed on our house and destroyed it totally,
so many people were injured," says nine-year-old Issara. Her two
brothers, four-year-old Hussein and five-year-old Mahmoud, listen carefully.
So does Ola Attaya, 31, a psychologist heading a pilot project to help
traumatised children.
In a bit Ola gets up and
gives Issara a hug. "It is okay, it is okay, you don't have to
be afraid now. You're safe."
The two little boys have
been mostly quiet since their family fled Ramieh, close to the border
between Israel and Lebanon.
"As you can see, some
of these children are not able to speak or communicate," Ola told
IPS at the centre for refugees at the Beirut American University. "We
feel that we can help them by giving them a chance to play, and speak
to us whenever they want."
Ola manages the project put
together by volunteers and spread now across six schools turned refugee
centres. Ola and her team are working with hundreds of children daily
to help them out of the trauma of the bombing.
Her staff of 40 includes
psychologists, teachers, animators, artists and art students. They set
up all sorts of activities with the children, like drawing, playing,
theatre and reading, mostly in groups. And many children have recovered
quickly enough.
"Early prevention is
very important," Ola said. "If you do not deal with the trauma
right away, it will grow more serious."
Her team encounters many
symptoms of trauma among children: sleep disorders, nightmares, clinging
to parents, difficulties in speaking, apathy, getting exceptionally
animated, or developing headache or stomach ache.
Nevertheless, at Ola's centre
it looked like school as usual. One group of children sat drawing, another
painting, and yet another writing. One group of ten children sat listening
to a teacher reading a fairy tale.
The children all sat on a
cement floor, their eyes focused on the pictures in the book. A couple
of boys ran around, getting up to pranks with some of the other children.
Most families at her centre
have come from the south, where children have seen bombings, and people
being killed and mutilated. And they have seen the trauma of their parents.
"Children are like sponges
and absorb their parents' anxieties and fears," Ola said. "So
therefore it is essential to help the parents in parallel with the children."
Some volunteers help parents
while others work with the groups of children. "Stories encourage
children to draw and to write about their experiences and eventually
talk about them," said Ola. "This is necessary for them to
cope with their experiences."
But the children are seeing
pictures also of destruction, and listening to stories also of death.
Two girls around 12 or 13
stood looking at the photographs of two young men glued on to the rear
window of a black car. "This is my brother," said one of them
wearing a black headscarf. "He was killed by the Israelis a few
days ago when they bombed our village. I loved him so much."
Ola and her team are preparing
to take on more children as the Israeli army expands its ground offensive,
and as air attacks draw nearer and nearer Beirut.
Some children are taking
to new drawings. "They are making postcards that we want to send
to Israeli children," said Ola.