Social Workers Sierra Leone (SWSL) has concluded a two-day training on Forgiveness, Gratitude and Appreciation (FGA) for People Living with Disabilities (PWDs) in Freetown.
Some 30 PWDs, drawn from various parts of the capital city, took part in the session held at the Regent Square School on Lightfoot Boston Street from Wednesday, July 19 to Thursday, July 20.
FGA is a healing and wellness tool designed for people undergoing difficulties. According to SWSL and the beneficiaries, this is the first time ever a training on this psychosocial tool has been organized for PWDs in Sierra Leone.
The trainees, many of whom are homeless people, were taken through a total of eight activities designed to bring out the good characters in them and to get them to know how to deal with stressful situations.
Hassan Koroma, National Coordinator of SWSL, led the team of social work volunteers who facilitated the session. He said that PWDs are constantly confronted with a lot of issues, including deprivation, stigmatization and discrimination, which in turn force them into isolation and sometimes behaviours that are potentially harmful to their wellbeing.
“At SWSL, we are always concerned about the wellbeing of our community members, especially those going through social difficulties. And among this category of people are the PWDs. We deemed it necessary to organize a wellbeing session focusing on their dignity, because we all know that the dignity of PWDs is always undermined and under attack,” said Koroma.
FGA as a tool for psychosocial counselling was designed by the US-based Non-Profit Lemon Aid Fund. A full session comprises 25 activities, all of them combined designed to basically inculcate self-confidence in people.
The session includes activities that, among others, help participants recognize their emotions. They also help them to understand their feelings and the reason for their change of mood.
A notable activity, Know Thyself, teaches the participants how to recognize the good qualities in themselves and not to accept what society normally portrays them as, while ignoring their real self.
Part of the activities also entails relaxation.
“This is good because most of the time when people feel stressed, it affects their physical body. Most of the time people think every problem has to do with medication. And that’s not true. Other forms of therapy help,” the SWSL Coordinator said.
He added: “There is no human being without good qualities and those qualities are what we help them to recognize by themselves.”
Wheelchair bound Michaela F. Jaka was one of the participants who sat through the two days, listening as social work volunteers take them through the activities that included physical exercises. The mother of four lives in a makeshift building housing about 150 people with various forms of disabilities, many of whom left their families to escape unfriendly treatment.
Michaela said she left home because she realized she had become a burden to her family, and she didn’t feel comfortable with the treatment she received. She now relies on street begging as a source of living.
“As a person, I never knew that I had anything inside me to be proud of. I have now learnt that from this programme,” she said as she shared her experience from the session with ManoReporters.
Michaela said she also learnt how to deal with people outside, the next time she is confronted by an unfriendly person.
The LemonAid Fund is a major partner and regular funder of SWSL. Through their collaboration, the FGA tool has been put into use in many scenarios in Sierra Leone, from post-election to epidemics like Ebola and Covid-19 and natural disasters like flooding and landslides.
