Recently, an 8-year-old girl attended one of the “Children and War. Teaching Recovery Techniques” therapy courses. At the beginning of the war, she lived with her parents and little brother in a small town in Kyiv region, which was occupied. When it became extremely dangerous and the whole family decided to leave the occupied territory, she heard the following words from her parents: “If we are killed, take your brother and do whatever you can to save yourselves. And if you can’t take him, just save yourself.”
All this time, the girl kept these words and memories to herself and did not tell anyone about it. At the first therapy session in a circle with other participants (children of primary school age) and trainers, in an atmosphere of trust, love and acceptance, she managed to talk about this situation and cry. After this she said: “I feel better. I will continue to work with you.” And she did. She really processed this horrible memory, and not only this one…
This is just one story. She is not the only one. We have a lot of them now. And we are thankful to everyone – the authors of the “Children and War. Teaching Recovery Techniques” program, financial partners and donor of our “Helping Hand for Ukraine” project – Canada-Ukraine Foundation (CUF), “HOPE worldwide Canada”, “HOPE worldwide” (USA), as well as all trainers, psychologists, and volunteers who are involved in our project. Now, in such difficult times for Ukraine, they are providing psycho-emotional help to those who desperately need it!
Here are the photos of the therapy groups that took place in March-April 2023 in Kamianets-Podilskyi, Khmelnytskyi region. The trainers – Svitlana Huminska, Svitlana Tymoshenko, Tetyana Hordiy, Tetyana Khamelyuk. We are grateful for the provided photos, for their work, professionalism, experience, and care!
