Sounds of Change in Uzhgorod - Ukraine
We have just returned from our first on-site training in Ukraine since the outbreak of full scale war.
At the invitation of our Sounds of Change Academy alumni Kateryna Kudasheva and her local organisation Sol Diez, we traveled with Trauma International trainers Saskia Bok and Maartje Schel. Having arrived in the city of Uzhgorod in the Ukrainian region of Zakarpattia we trained 32 caregivers, teachers and therapists.
The participants came to Uzhgorod from all over Ukraine to attend our 5-day training programme. We trained them to use music as a tool to calm the war-induced stress that many people are experiencing. To connect with others, to express emotions and to stimulate resilience. We used the musical instruments we had available from our Magical Suitcases to teach the participants simple techniques to enable their clients (both children and adults) to express themselves. In addition, we passed on a great deal of knowledge about how trauma works in the brain and why music can help to calm stress and trauma.
We would like to share a few of our participants' reactions with you. It highlights the urgency of our training, the impact on the people we trained and the impact they themselves will have on their own clients and children.
"It seems that my life is divided into ‘before' and ‘after' the training. It was deep personal therapy."
"This experience gave me strength, support, wisdom, and motivation to live and develop further, strength, it healed my mental injuries and gave impetus to new ideas. I feel great gratitude and fullness."
"I know a lot about trauma, but I have learned how to explain complex things in simple terms. I'm incredibly grateful for that. I work with internally displaced parents and kids, and I observe a lot of disunity in families. Thanks to the training, I already have ideas on how to use this knowledge to unite families. I am so looking forward to doing it.”
As with every Sounds of Change programme, the trainees composed a song together. From shared personal stories emerged a song about resilience. During the creative process the participants also composed the melody, chords and arrangement themselves. The song's chorus features the poignant words: 'I am strong, beautiful, I am a flower, I am life’.
By going through this process, the participants not only experienced the power of creating something together from a personal source; but also the simple step-by-step techniques that they can then perform with their own target groups.
According to Maartje and Saskia from Trauma International, social connection is one of the most important factors in trauma-sensitive work. And as a team of trainers, never before have we experienced the connecting power of singing and composition as intensely as during our week in Ukraine. The important connections made between the entire group - with us as trainers but especially amongst the participants - was almost magical. Where people lose the connection with themselves and each other through war and pain, a paralysis in survival threatens. This week confirmed to us that we are programmed to recover by reconnecting with each other and therefore with ourselves. Together we formed a safe place with room for all emotions, contrasted with the rediscovery of pleasure through the non-verbal release of music. Music brings the whole body, from head to toe, into a rhythm; the basis for calming stress. At times during the training we really laughed together, forgetting for a moment where we were and why we were there.
This week in Ukraine garnered a lot of attention in the Dutch media - both on the radio and in print (AD, in Dutch). It was also very special that the local Uzhhorod television came by to film an item, which was broadcast last Friday.
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With love, peace and warmth,
Lucas and Sander & Saskia and Maartje (Trauma International)