Dr. Abraham Hauriasi, General Secretary of the Anglican Church of Melanesia made the statement at the official closing of the Trauma and Counseling training held at the Christian Care Center (CCC) on Friday last week.
Twenty Nine participants representing the four religious orders, Mothers Union, volunteers and supporters of CCC and representative from St. Nicholas School attended the Seven day Training facilitated by Reverend Robyn Boyd from the Diocese of Melbourne – Australia.
Marking the closing and award presentation of the day, Dr. Hauriasi said, we cannot continue to rely solely on intuition and on the knowledge and experiences passed on from our elders to tackle the many social problems in our country today”
He said “We need new knowledge and skills to complement what we already know to help us find new ways of dealing with problems like family violence, sexual violence and child abuse”.
He further said that the Church (ACoM) is very supportive of programs that will help us tackle the rising social problems in our country.
Fr. George Elo, Mission Secretary of the Anglican Church of Melanesia who is also at the closing ceremony salutes the participants for their commitment and time to complete the training despite busy schedules.
Fr. Elo urged the participants to use their new knowledge and skills in working to combat family related problems that are taking toll in our country.
We are now well equipped and confident to carry out what has been gained from the training, a staff at the center said.
The training covers seven modules with topics – Understanding family and sexual violence and their effects, Cultural and Biblical Perspective, Basic Counseling skills, Trauma Counseling, Working with Children affected by family and sexual violence, working with male abusers and self-care.
The overall aim of the training is: to increase the CCC and associated worker’s knowledge and understanding of the dynamics of the family and sexual violence, and of the short and longer term effects of trauma on child and adult survivors of such violence; To equip the CCC workers/ Volunteers with skills to assist and counsel child and adult survivors of family and sexual violence that includes basic counseling skills and Trauma counseling skills; To identify cultural influences on gender roles and violence and to examine biblical perspectives on these; To equip male workers in assisting abusers to take responsibility for their behavior and finally to develop worker’s awareness of the effects on themselves as they assist and counsel survivors of violence.
The training was funded by Anglican Board of Missions- Australia.
Christian Care Center (CCC) is owned by the Anglican Church of Melanesia and is the only refuge center throughout Solomon Islands that provides shelter for women and children victims of domestic and sexual abuse.