It would’ve probably been about ten years or more ago now,
I found myself sitting at home watching Oprah Winfrey, as you do,
and she was interviewing a lady who had had her child abducted.
Abducted by a rebel group, known as “The Lord’s Resistance Army.”
According to the United Nations, it wasn’t just her daughter,
but between 30,000 and 50,000
young children were abducted
to be turned into child soldiers and sex slaves,
held captive for years on end.
And this lady started a little organization,
called the “Concerned Parents’ Association”
to help families who were struggling with the loss of their child,
but to also come around young kids who would escape from the rebel group,
or who would be captured or let go.
And she wanted to provide trauma rehabilitation training for them,
to help them recover from the tragedies and the things,
the terrible unspeakable things, that they were forced to commit.
And that was a red flag for me, because that’s my area of specialty,
and I thought maybe there’s a way in which we can help out or serve.
So I made contact with this lady,
and I jumped on an airplane, and I flew all the way over to Uganda,
and I sat down together with her and her team
and asked the all-important question:
“So what kind of trauma rehabilitation is it that you do?
Which are the therapeutic modalities, if you will, that you employ?”
And they said, “Well to be honest,
we don’t actually know that much about trauma rehabilitation,
so what we do is we just play loud music, and let the kids dance all night long.
And I’m thinking, “Okay so some kind of dance therapy; I can roll with that.”
But then I started explaining to them some of the advances that have been made
in clinical psychology and neuroscience,
explaining not just how we’ve understood the brain better,
so that when it comes to trauma we’re better informed on how to treat it,
but also some of the practical strategies that young people can employ,
to help make a recovery.
They said they’d never heard anything like that before,
and so we began the journey of systematically equipping and empowering
humanitarian organisations throughout the region.
Until a couple of years later,
we’d pretty much completed our task and we thought,
“Our job is done! We can go home!”
But that’s when the people said, “No, no, no! Your job hasn’t even begun.
The real need is the 1.7 million refugees
who are scattered in 120 different refugee camps
along the border of northern Uganda and southern Sudan.
That’s where the real trauma is taking place.”
The only problem was that no humanitarian organisation
wanted to work in that area at the time.
In fact there was only one organisation,
“Médecins Sans Frontières,” Doctors without Borders,
who had stationed two mid-wives in one of the 120 refugee camps
to service a population of 65,000 people.
The reason why no one was working in that area
was quite simply it was dangerous to travel along the roads.
This is a picture of a young Robbie, a scared young Robbie, I should add,
travelling on those roads where many cars would of course be ambushed.
In fact one late night, a car behind us got ambushed, and two people got killed.
So, our question was, “How do we go ahead
and provide innovative mental health services for a people
who are in great need, but not get killed in the process?”
And that’s what I want to talk to you about today.
When we started working in northern Uganda,
we first started to partner with the local community,
to understand what are the cultural nuances and sensitivities
that we really need to be aware of.
And together we developed a 13-session program,
that was structured, evidence-based, research-driven, and ethically centred
and what’s more, outcome oriented.
In other words, we wanted to develop a program that actually got results.
But it wasn’t your standard, average, everyday kind of therapeutic program.
We had to bend the rules, if you will.
We had to think outside the square and innovate.
Firstly, we were training up local non-professionals
to facilitate this programme
While the programme may have been written by professionals,
those who would be rolling it out would not be otherwise qualified
as clinical psychologists or social workers or psychiatrists.
What’s more is that we would be rolling this out in refugee camps
in the middle of a war zone.
So, we wouldn’t have the scope or capacity or freedom to go in
for one hour every week, come back and forth.
So, we would have to go in there for a couple of intensive weeks at a time.
But there was a little bit of push-back right from the get-go.
Not everyone was happy with this, because firstly it had never been done before,
and so people said it couldn’t be done.
But most importantly, people were saying, “Hang on!
You’re taking our authority away.
As the professionals, you’re putting the authority or the power
into hands of local untrained people. I don’t know. Is that even ethical?”
There was only one person, the CEO of World Vision who encouraged us
and said, “No, no, no!” That’s like the tail wagging the dog.”
This is like the reformation taking the Bible out of the hands of the priests
and translating it into local everyday language so that people can read it
and be equipped and empowered for themselves.
But it’s not easy because when you step outside the square
it takes incredible courage to do things that have never been done before.
We systematically trained up 12 facilitators and sent them out
into the war zone in 2006.
But by the time 2008 rolled around,
they had already had 20,000 people go through the program.
We evaluated the effectiveness of the program for these people
at a 12-week interval, three-month, six-month and 12-month follow-up.
And we also compared it to people who had not been through the program,
to see whether or not it was the program making gains
or whether or not it was just time that served as the healing effect.
Those people who didn’t end up going through any kind
of therapeutic initiative continued to decline in their mental health,
highlighting for us that we were maybe onto something.
By stepping outside the square and doing things that had never been done,
or in ways that had never been done before,
maybe this was a future model for other disaster areas or war zones
or people who are in other ways not able to access mental health services.
But when you were to sit down with these people and actually ask them,
“Of all of the things that you experienced in the program,
what were the most impacting parts?
What was the one thing that you could say, ‘that changed my life more than anything’?
“What would that one thing be?”
And it was amazing because the people would all say exactly the same thing.
It was finally understanding what this thing called “forgiveness” is,
and how to practically apply it in their lives.
See, that’s another unconventional thing that we did.
We incorporated forgiveness into a trauma rehabilitation program,
understanding that unless people who have been hurt and hard done by
bitterly betrayed by neighbors,
unless they learn how to reconcile their past
and get on with their future,
then they may well run the risk of becoming the same perpetrators
in the next generation as the cycle of violence continues.
When it comes to this thing called forgiveness,
there’s lots of misunderstanding, and even confusion around it.
When we have been hurt or hard done by, we kind of like to hold on to our pain.
It’s not very heavy, I can do it without any problem,
but nonetheless, I like to hold onto it, not to close, but still I’m holding on.
It’s like that stealth bomber mosquito that flies in under the radar
and gets you when you are not looking.
And now you’ve got a welt on your skin, and you know that you shouldn’t touch it,
but you just can’t help yourself.
Why? Because it feels so good to feel bad at some level.
So in the same way, when we’ve been hurt and hard done-by,
we like to nurse, curse, and rehearse all the bad things that have happened.
We like to scratch that mosquito bite.
And before you know it, it’s bleeding. two weeks later it’s infected.
You know if you had just left it alone, by tomorrow,
chances are it would be gone.
It’s kind of like the rash you scratch.
You’ve got an itch so you feel compelled to scratch it
but scratching it doesn’t make it go away,
it only makes the rash more angry.
And that’s exactly what happens with unforgiveness.
When we hold onto our hurt, our pain, our bitterness, and our resentment,
our lust for revenge,
it’s like holding on at an arm’s length distance.
Now at the beginning, it was relatively light,
but now I’ve been holding on for a couple minutes,
and I’ve got to say my arm is starting to pain me.
So, part one of what forgiveness is, it’s simply making a choice
to put it down and let it go. Ahh!
I’ve got to say there is this instantaneous relief
that comes the moment I let it go.
But in all honesty, I’m still in pain. It takes time to recover.
It’s like, if you have a gash in your leg, and you take yourself off to the doctor,
and the doctor says, “Oh!” That looks nasty!
We’re going to clean that out, stitch it up, and put a dressing on it.”
And then they send you home.
Treatment takes place in an instant,
whereas healing often takes place over time.
And in the same way, forgiveness takes place in an instant.
But so long as I don’t go back now and pick up my hurt and pain,
I’ve allowed an environment for healing to take place.
Forgiveness is a gift, a gift that we get to give even if it’s undeserved.
In fact there are no strings attached for this gift.
Anyone can give it, for any reason, and at any time.
The person who we are extending it to doesn’t have to say they’re sorry.
In fact they don’t even have to acknowledge
that they’ve done anything wrong.
In fact if you truly understand what forgiveness is,
you realize it actually has very little to do with that person.
I’d go one step further and say that person
doesn’t even need to be alive anymore and you can still forgive them.
Because if you understand what forgiveness is,
it speaks more about the gift-giver than it does about the perpetrator.
Forgiveness is a conscious daily choice that I will no longer negatively dwell
on the things that transpired.
I’m not going to nurse, curse, and rehearse all the bad things.
No, I’m going to reverse it and disperse it from my life;
an active daily choice not to scratch the rash.
It’s interesting, we had a case at the World Vision Children of War Centre
where a young girl had been working in the field.
She was pregnant, she was out in the field with her friends,
and the rebels came along and they killed all her friends.
But because it was a bad omen to kill a pregnant girl,
they simply mutilated her instead.
I won’t go into all the graphic details but she was rescued
and brought into the World Vision Children of War Rehabilitation Centre,
but it wasn’t long thereafter where the child soldier
who was forced to do these things to her also escaped from the rebel group
and made it into the World Vision Children of War Centre.
And the girl of course said, “Hang on! That’s that guy who did this to me!”
And the facilitator said, “Well, what do you want us to do about it?”
She replied by saying, “You’ve been talking about this thing
called forgiveness; maybe I could give that a go.”
So, she stood up in front of everyone, and she announced that this was the day
that she was making a choice to let go,
to no longer hold onto the hurt and the pain
that had been causing her so much harm.
I liken trauma to being bitten by a snake.
In Australia, we have the most poisonous snakes in the world.
So, we know, right from primary school,
what we need to do if we get bitten by a snake.
But whenever I’m in Africa, I ask these kids,
“What’s the first thing you need to do if you get bitten by a snake?”
And they always say, “Go kill that snake!”
But killing the snake doesn’t help you in that moment.
Our number one responsibility is to get rid of the poison.
Personally, I think it’s a fascinating observation
that not a single person, ever, throughout history,
has died from a poisonous snake bite.
Because we don’t die from the bite.
We die from the poison that remains within.
It is often said that unforgiveness is like drinking poison,
but hoping the other person dies.
But when we learn to get rid of our poison and forgive, amazing things can happen.
This young girl who stood up in front of witnesses to make this declaration,
the facilitator’s like, “Man, how real is that? Seriously?
Like it’s one thing to say it, but a whole other thing to actually do it.”
And so the facilitator followed this girl around for the next several weeks.
She eventually gave birth to her baby, and one day,
the facilitator walked around the corner to accidentally stumble upon
both the girl and perpetrator who mutilated her,
both playing with the newly born baby.
You don’t have to befriend the perpetrator.
That is not a prerequisite for forgiveness.
but as Martin Luther King said, “The power of forgiveness is so great,
that it can even transform an enemy into a friend.”
The challenge for us is to realize that it’s like lifting weights.
If you go to the gym and you go to the bench-press,
or you’ve got a bar, it’s a heavy weight,
this thing called, hurt, pain, resentment, lust for revenge,
And so our responsibility is to make ,the choice to push it away.
But the moment you do the next day it comes back.
You’re reminded, you’re triggered, as to what transpired and what they did.
And you think, “Yeah, I’ll forgive them, just as soon as they get hit by a bus.”
Because I want them to feel what I’ve gone through, but hang on,
it doesn’t do me any good to wish them ill,
because when I wish that somebody would go to hell,
I send myself there too at the same time.
So, my responsibility is to simply push it up.
And the next day, push it up.
Day after day I start to build condition; the mental, emotional,
and spiritual strength, until eventually I can…
put it down and let it go.
These are some of the innovations
that we’ve been pioneering on the front line.
This last year, we celebrated 100,000 graduates
from the Empowered Trauma Rehabilitation Program,
and it’s now making its run around the world.
In Eastern Europe, in South American, all throughout Asia, and of course, now,
in the Middle East where we’re pioneering new programs,
asking the question once again:
How can we think outside the square?
How can we do things that have never been done before?
How can we innovate?
How can we have the courage to push the envelope,
and provide quality mental health services for people who really need it,
but not kill ourselves in the process?
And that’s the challenge I want to leave with you.
Maybe it’s time for you to innovate as well.
Maybe it’s time for you to do something that you’ve never done before;
to search your own heart to see whether or not
there are residual pockets of hurt, or pain, or bitterness, or resentment,
and make a decision that this is the day I’m going to reconcile my past
so that I can truly take off in flight and get on with my future,
no longer held back by the chains of nursing, cursing, and rehearsing
the bad things that have happened, but making a decision:
This is the day where I reverse it and I disperse it from my life.
I wish you well on your journey.
Thank you.
(Applause)
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