Tag Archive for: Kigali Rwanda

 

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Celestin-and-Jenny

Last weekend Celestin Mitabu, the TFT Foundation’s lead trainer in Kigali, Rwanda, and Director of the Rwandan Orphans Project, joined the Callahan’s Optimal Health training in Seattle, WA. His training was provided by the Callahan’s and his travel by the TFT Foundation, including considerable donations from board members Jenny Edwards and Suzanne Connolly. Jenny donated a majority of the airline miles for his trip and Suzanne and her family hosted him in Seattle for nearly a week. Joanne, Jenny and Suzanne also donated personally, school and personal hygiene materials for the orphans.

This is a cause for celebration as Celestin is the first to have learned TFT Voice Technology in Africa. He will use it to support further trainings in adjoining regions and countries. He has already been asked to train in the Congo and will assist with the foundation’s follow-up to the 2012 PTSD study in Uganda. He has already done so much to help the people of his country and share TFT with others, we are proud to have him represent TFT in Kigali.

Celestin brought a beautiful carved walking stick to present to Roger, TFT’s Founder, as a thank you for the gift of TFT. He told us these sticks are presented to “men of honor”.

Celestin-with-Stick

Celestin-and-Joanne-with-Cert

There was a trip to Rwanda earlier this month,  to film a documentary on the work the Rwandans are doing using TFT. The Rwandans hope to serve as a model for other countries who have suffered large-scale traumatic events.  The filming went well, and of course, after hearing the stories of healing, the documentarians want to learn TFT!  I am attaching a journal of the 11 day trip for any of you who would like to hear about it. Suzanne M. Connolly, LCSW

The TFT Foundation efforts to make a film documenting the use of TFT in Rwanda got off to a superb beginning.   We landed in Kigali Rwanda the evening of the 8th of January.

Bob Stone, our documentarian, Diana Gross, his assistant and I were greeted at the airport by Father Augustin, organizer of the Byumba segments of the filming; Darling Clementine, organizer of the 2008 research and 2010 follow-up and this year’s TFT training; Billy Gatete, old friend and translator; and Jean de Due, former resident and now supervisor at the Rwandan Orphan Project.

We hit the ground running and by 8am the 9th, Diana, Bob and I were in a car headed to meet some of the new TFT trainees, trained by Celestin Mitabu. We entered the training room, located in Stella Bar, a local restraint/bar, and I was surprised to see many so many familiar faces.  Most of the new trainees, recently trained by Celestin, were former 2008 study participants from the AID’s group, the Widows’ group, and the older orphan groups.  What a pleasant surprise!  Their experience of TFT was such a positive one; they wanted to help others using this technique.

The stories were amazing!  One by one the trainers gathered at the Stella Bar, told their own personal stories.   In a separate room Robert Stone, our documentarian and his assistant Diana Gross got four moving stories on film.  In the larger room, others wanted to share their amazing stories of recovery with the help of TFT.

Each one started with something like: “I thought this was crazy. How could tapping help MY problems?”  But they did follow the instructions of their Rwandan therapists in 2008, and they did tap.  One by one, as they told their stories of trauma and recovery, I heard things like: “I’ve had a sad life.” “The first time in my life that I felt happy was after I joined the Widows group and then we did TFT.” “Now I have a life, a business.”  “Now I have hope, where before I had no hope and thought I would just die and my children would be orphans.” We were all inspired and encouraged by these stories of recovery. Read more

Caroline Sakai, PhD., a psychologist and TFT practitioner, based in Hawaii, headed a team of therapists who worked with children in an orphanage in Kigali, Rwanda. The children survived the Rwandan genocide in 1994, in which 800,000 to 1 million people were slaughtered during the course of 100 days. Dr Sakai was interviewed by Michiko Ishikawa for Share International.

Share International: How did you come to work with the genocide survivors in Rwanda?

Caroline Sakai: The idea came up when I was in New Orleans as part of an ATFT Foundation Trauma Relief Team working with Hurricane Katrina survivors and first responders – doctors, nurses and security people who were working with the survivors. One of the team members, Paul Oas, a psychotherapist and minister, asked me if I could work with the genocide survivors of Rwanda. His church has been helping to support the El Shaddai orphanage in Kigali, Rwanda, by providing necessities like food and shelter. He was seeing the effects of the genocide trauma among the children in terms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) – nightmares, flashbacks, insomnia, bedwetting, depression, withdrawal and rage. Reverend Oas wanted to take a TFT team there and work with the genocide survivors. Since I had headed the clinical team in New Orleans, he asked if I could do that in Rwanda.

The complete TFT treatment for trauma would be essentially following up with what else comes up for the client after successfully processing through the targeted trauma.

Targeting any residual body sensations often brings up further information to process through, more perturbations. This would be continued until no more perturbations can be found, and client now thinks about the trauma or phobia with clearly changed perspectives, affect, thoughts, intensity, vividness, body sensations, perceptions in all sensory modalities, etc.

Using the Peak Performance protocol to enhance and improve confidence in coping effectively in dealing with the problem is an important component that parallels the future template. The usual instructions for the client to call if there are any recurrence of symptoms would also be in effect, as well as follow-up session(s) to work on residuals or other material that emerges subsequently in awake or dream states.

SI: What is unique about your method of working with trauma?

CS: Thought Field Therapy is the most rapidly effective, and most gentle, treatment of trauma I have come across. Read more