Cape Town - In an attempt to bring calm in the storm of violence and abuse faced by many South Africans, Community Cohesion, a non-profit organisation, is offering free trauma sessions this month to help the public deal with and understand trauma.
Bronwyn Moore, the director, said depending on the success of these first sessions, the organisation intends to host them monthly to help heal the brokenness in communities. The first sessions take place from November 1 until November 16 in Hout Bay, Masiphumelele and Ocean View and are open to 18 years plus.
The NPO focuses on victim empowerment programmes, mostly working adults. Their clients are either individuals who seek solace from their traumas or those referred by various social institutions after being exposed to incidents or experiencing abuse.
Moore said that over the years they realised the need to broadly address the topic and normalise talking about trauma as many were suffering in silence, while others were not aware they were experiencing secondary trauma.
“We live in a violent country. This violence is expressed in a variety of ways, from interpersonal violence, sexual violence, domestic violence to shutdowns and service delivery and taxi protests. Poverty is also a form of violence. Even if this is not happening directly to us, we are secondary victims of violence.
“And there is not enough information about the impact of trauma, especially secondary trauma. We have normalised violence so much that unless we suffer bodily harm, it is seen as insignificant. Unaddressed trauma will have an impact on your mental and physical health down the line.
“We are testing these as we work in high violence areas with murders, sexual and domestic violence happening weekly, but people feel that unless the violence happened to them directly, it is not an issue. We hope that this will be the start of monthly sessions,” explained Moore.
Xola Fayo, a field social worker, said symptoms include but are not limited to substance abuse, sexual problems, lack of trust, feeling lonely, anger and depression, sadness, anxiety and being fearful.
“Therefore, it is important for the community to engage and attend these sessions and ask questions on how to deal with trauma and how to deal with it from micro, mezzo and macro level of intervention,” Fayo added.
A client who wished to remain anonymous said: “Community Cohesion helped me in understanding my triggers. I am a rape survivor and I struggled when I would want to go into a relationship. I hated my body and did not trust men. They helped me build my self-esteem.”