I (Karen) started working in orphanages in Belarus in September 2001.I lived and worked in Minsk Belarus for three years. I started out as an English teacher and provided small amounts of humanitarian aid for the children and infants that I worked with. In the spring of 2004 I had been working at one orphanage (with about 85 kids ages 7-18) for 3 years. I saw the immense need for support on an individual level with the children that I worked with. I began the process of remodelling two rooms in the orphanage to be used for individual work with the children. In the year 2004 I left Belarus as a full time worker and Anita joined me to develop an expressive therapies program for the children of the orphanage. We received training from Turnaround Institute in Brisbane Australia and worked from Anita's extensive knowledge of violence in the home through her work as a crisis counselor at the Domestic Violence Service of Central Queensland Australia. We returned for a three month stay in Belarus and began to work from the rooms that I had remodelled in the spring of 2005. We work as part time volunteer counsellors in one main orphanage about two hours outside of the capital city. Each year we go for a period of time to provide therapeutic support for the children living there. We also try to provide safe local contacts with organizations who are interested in providing for the children's spiritual and social growth.
While we are there, we ask for a class list of children and work individually with that child for about an hour each session. The child is free to express his or her own ideas and creations through an expressive therapy process called "Sandplay".
The client is given the possibility, by means of figures and the arrangement of the sand in the area bounded by the sandbox, to set up a world corresponding to his or her inner state. In this manner, through free, creative play, unconscious processes are made visible in a three-dimensional form and a pictorial world comparable to the dream experience. Through a series of images that take shape in this way, the process of individuation described by C. G. Jung is stimulated and brought to fruition."(from www.sandplay.org) Sandplay
This process deals with the subconscious mind, allowing both children and adults to non verbally communicate their past and present. Many of the children deal with multiple traumatic experiences. Some of them are able to talk about it and some do not know how to express their pain. Therefore, we allow them to express their traumas non verbally and help them to integrate these traumas into their present lives. Many of the children deal with the symptoms of attachment disorder, PTSD, and FAS. Besides this, they remain in institutional care which creates a sense of powerlessness and depression. As orphans they are given very little free time to play. Besides the therapeutic benefit of Sandplay we also observe the positive effects that simple free play is able to provide for children living in institutional care.
Outside of Belarus we work to raise awareness about domestic violence, abuse, and the issues linked to these topics. We provide specifically tailored training for the group that requests training on these issues. Our services are free of charge. We are especially concerned with the amount of violence in the home prevalent in the Christian community. We seek to raise awareness among Christian churches and organizations about the spiritual, emotional, mental, and physical effects of violence in the home and what churches can do to support those who are in violent relationships. The material we use is based on training provided from the Domestic Violence Service of Central Queensland (connected with Centacare- the welfare arm of the Catholic Church in Australia), and Mending the Soul Ministries in Phoenix Arizona.
Please check out Mending the Soul's website for excellent resources on spirituality and the effects of violence and abuse at www.mendingthesoulministries.org
