Aid project strengthens mothers and children in Lebanon and Jordan

At deister electronic, we are concerned about the need in the world. Especially traumatised children growing up in war zones need our charity and attention. For this very reason we extended our support to the international aid project "Leylaprojekt" via donations in 2021.

Having escaped alongside their families from conflict and terror, these children have experienced terrible things: according to UNHCR, over a million children have spent years residing in refugee camps and other provisional setups in Jordan and Lebanon. The majority of the residents of these camps are minors, many of them severely traumatised by their exposure to war. Their dramatic situation has received little attention for months, in part because of the widespread effects of the global pandemic.

A new initiative from the Hanover region has taken on the task of making a difference for these children: the Leylaproject, a group of researchers, therapists, and caring individuals from places like Hanover and Hildesheim. What's unique about this project is that it aims to assist the traumatized children by having experts on site support their mothers. According to the initiators, this approach has already been successfully tested and scientifically proven.

A total of 16 volunteer women will undergo training to become trauma counsellors within one year in Lebanon and Jordan.The training, both theoretical and practical, is managed and conducted by the Christian-based aid organisation Ithraa, the local partner of the Leyla project.

Dr Ann-Katrin Bockmann, a psychologist at the University of Hildesheim, had visited a refugee camp in Jordan in 2020 and was shocked by the extent of the misery: "Some of the children and parents in these camps have had to endure highly traumatising things, including torture, bomb attacks, rape and massacres. The confinement, desolation and lack of prospects leads to violence, fear, anger and hopelessness within families."

When Bockmann heard about the research results of a Syrian psychologist at a conference, she took notice. She had found out that trauma counselling for mothers also directly benefits their children - the key to healing entire families. As a licensed child and adolescent psychotherapist, the researcher from Hildesheim runs the university outpatient clinic for children and teenagers (KiM - Kind im Mittelpunkt) together with Prof. Dr. Claudia Mähler. Back in Germany, she began to activate her network: "The encounters in the camps moved me so much that I absolutely want to strengthen the women as mothers and thus give the children a better future."

Both Bockmann and the internationally working psychologist Prof. Dr. Tom Holmes are experienced in working with traumatised refugees. Together with the theologian and therapist Michael Borkowski from Laatzen, they made the plan to put the empowerment of mothers into practice on site. A team of volunteers from Hanover supports them.