ABSTRACT
A Girls Empowerment Programme held in 2010 in Lesotho, Sub-Saharan Africa, focused on HIV/AIDS risk reduction and prevention, life skills and entrepreneurial training (income-generating activities). Entrepreneurial training was a crucial part of equipping the camp attendees with basic skills to help them develop sustainable livelihoods. Such skills and financial independence are essential to enable rural girls to complete their secondary schooling (in a fee-based educational system) and to pursue a career, as well as to further help them be less susceptible to transactional sex and its significant risks. The results of a brief process evaluation with some nested supporting data showed considerable improvement in the girls' knowledge about income-generating activities. In addition, almost half of the camp attendees participated in further entrepreneurial training and about half of these girls went on to develop small businesses. Replication of this model of camp training is recommended and being explored in other African countries.
ABSTRACT
Natural disasters such as Hurricane Katrina, which devastated the Gulf Coast of the United States in the summer of 2005, have highlighted the need to develop effective post-trauma psychotherapeutic intervention strategies, not only to deal with the immediate psychological aftermath of trauma, but also the long-term effects of anniversary reactions. Governmental responses to Hurricane Katrina relief were greatly criticized for disorganization and delay. Both immediately afterwards and in ensuing months, people's life needs often were not addressed. People-to-people individual and group grassroots efforts, including those provided by mental health professionals, however, did reach local communities to service immediate needs and long-term emotional reactions. The present paper describes one such effort designed to help survivors cope on the occasion of the first anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. Specifically, anniversary reaction group workshops were held to address unresolved emotional issues and to promote healing by encouraging belonging, comfort, security, and resilience. The ultimate goal of these wellness workshops was to assist participants in understanding and resolving their anniversary reactions. Preliminary quantitative and qualitative findings suggested that this workshop format helped participants face their anniversary reactions, address their related psychological sequelae, and deal with their physical displacement. Participants were then able to find the emotional strength to reattach, form new communities, and begin problem solving. These methods, with appropriate cultural modifications, were subsequently used in China, to assist Chinese mental health professionals prepare for the first anniversary of the Sichuan earthquake.
