vivo’s work in Sri Lanka

Since early 2002 vivo has been partnering with GTZ, the Ministry of Education, the Education Council North-East and Shantiham Association for Health & Counselling to build-up a cascade model of psycho-social care for affected school children in the North-Eastern provinces of Sri Lanka. In the framework of this model, more than 1500 teachers have been trained as qualified Counsellors and Befrienders to provide services to children and their families in need.
With the help of local organizations, such as Shantiham and the University of Jaffna, a supervision and referral system was build-up alongside, which allowed coordination of services to such a degree that after the Tsunami had hit Sri Lankan coastal areas in December 2004, almost one third of all trained teachers could be readily deployed to support relief work in the most severely affected educational zones under the guidance of the swiftly established Disaster Mental Health Task Force.
Various epidemiological studies carried out by vivo and the team of local counselors, have shown dramatically increased prevalence rates of psychological disorders in Tamil children with up to every third child diagnosed with Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (link to related publication). Furthermore, the findings showed that detrimental effects of the long lasting violence are visible at the individual level (psychological and physical impairment), at the family level (loss of close relatives, violence at home), as well as on the community level (poverty, lack of schooling facilities, alcohol use) [link to related publication] .

About 150 former counselors have been trained in Narrative Exposure Therapy as well as a local therapy approach of meditation and relaxation techniques. Two randomized controlled treatment trials have proven that the local counselors are able to carry out psychological interventions that lead to a significant reduction of trauma symptoms and functional impairment in the affected children.

Sri Lanka – a country shattered by war and natural disaster

In Sri Lanka’s North-Eastern provinces, traumatic experiences were already common prior to the Tsunami in December 2004. For two decades, thousands of people have been killed and many more were displaced as a result of conflict and violence in the country. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam (LTTE) have been fighting for political autonomy, which resulted in ongoing conflict in the Northern and Eastern areas of the country. Civilians have become casualties of war; landmines and unexploded ordnance posed a constant threat; hospitals and schools have been destroyed; and the economy has been shattered.

Since the assassination of the rebel’s leader Velupillai Prabhakaran in May 2009, the violent conflict has ended. However, the Tamil civilian population, in particular the children, now have to face the widespread consequences of years of war. In the final phase of the most recent fights, about 300,000 Tamil Sri Lankans were transferred to camps in Vavuniya District (mostly former schools) and detained there against their will. Even though the Sri Lankan government had announced to resettle 80% of the IDPs by the end of 2009, at the end of February 2010, still 100.000 IDPs were living in the camps under extremely poor conditions.