Remote Learning in Times of Crisis

1.Problem Gender and race.based violence obstructing education-and lives.

2.Solution: Sharing funds and professional resources to change violence into dialog and cooperation. We have planned and collaborated since 2018 with 20 partners in a network of NGOs (attached). In their own department, Antioquía (population: 6,407,000), partner Corporación Región f.ex. has focused on Dialog circles in the schools of the Vallé de Abura, ensuring  primary and secondary school learners access to quality, safe, and equitable learning environments., while https://reconectando.org/ gathers survivors in remote forests.

3.Scaling globally: A webinar on June 18th targeted Spanish speakers among our 1600 members: psychologist Hector Aristizabal presented work with eco-dialogs with former antagonists in the jungles of their former violence <https://reconectando.org/territoriosagrado/>.

At a webinar in English on September 10th, Learning in Times of Crisis: Ending Violence, Healing Trauma, Bulding Peace, noted speakers will address these themes. See the event and ZOOM-link at https://www.facebook.com/ishhr2021.

Specific problem?

Colombia leads the world in assassinations of activists

Violence at home spreads into schools and societies. Our partners - mostly women-led and women´s rights NGOs in a society recovering after 50 years of warfare - deal with violence in homes, protect human rights defenders (HRDs), moderate equitable classrooms, and care for families in times of crisis. ISHHR supports women leaders and HRDs by promoting the right to education and sharing treatment methods for traumatic Human Rights abuse, facilitating post-conflict reconciliation, reconstruction and re-socialization.

Scaling up

Habitual violence can erupt into wars like that "ended" by Peace accords in 2016, but currently ramping up in the form of state-condoned violence against peaceful demonstrators costing 23 lives in May. See https://eeas.europa.eu/headqua...

Contributing factors relate to solutions, because frustration, fear, and hopelessness incite anger and violence. By addressing violence wisely and training people in alternative responses, our collaboration will decrease violence. 

Capacity-building in Antioquía uses educational instruments-in schools and in nature-to change behavior, practices, and attitudes, implementing safe and adequate care and gender equity.

Scale in Colombia https://www.un.org/sexualviole...

 In 2020, 239 cases of sexual violence: women, girls, men, boys, Afro-Colombians, indigenous persons, and disabled. 2021: 152 summary executions so far

ISHHR professionals are specialists in post-traumatic research and treatment: they work with people who have been subjected to violence. Colombia-based partners work to change attitudes and behavior towards women and girls and eliminate violence towards HRDs. Together, we train practitioners and psychosocial caregivers in methods for change (see Who does Solution serve). Regular contacts cement the foundations for collaboration in the sciences of mental health and education. Digital teaching methods and webinars explain and practice new models 

The last decades of developments in mental health and education are systematic applications of science.

Neuropsychology reveals that the brain´s synapses wither after traumatic events: circuits involving the medial prefrontal cortex become dysfunctional. Recovery occurs after appropriate treatment: mental health specialists advanced software. Among clinical technologies used are EMDHR (Eye-movement dissentisaízation)and NET.

In pedagogics, John Hattie (2009) integrates huge amounts of educational research, giving individual elements of teaching and learning an effect-size on learning: a “d” value. The average of these effect sizes, d=0.4, is the “hinge point. Focusing efforts beyond this value will more likely achieve significant gains for students.

Economy and technology develop best in stable societies. Improving education and mental health will help to stabilize Antioquia.

Who we serve:  Survivors and offspring of a 50-year war, both victims and perpetrators.

To understand their needs: We get to know them. 20 Colombian organizations have signed on to this capacity-building alliance:

Caritas Colombiana, Cruz Roja Colombiana, Seccional Antioquia, Fundación Forjando Futuros, Fundación ICDP, Fundación Oriéntame, CIASE, Humanas, ONU Mujeres, Pastoral Social Medellín, PBI, Reconectando, Sisma Mujer, Abogados sin Fronteras, Casa Tres Patios, Centro Fe y Cultura, Codacop, Comité Internacional Cruz Roja, Conciudadania and Universidad de Antioquía.

As our Local Facilitator in Antioquía, Hector Aristizabal, writes,

"Violence in the home is the root cause of all violence in Colombia".

Colombia is the country on earth with the largest number of assassinations of human rights activists.

They are under-served: 

While the United Nations Security Council convened (21.04.21) to discuss killings of social leaders in Colombia, Sandra Pena, an indigenous governor who criticized coca plantations, became victim #152 in 2021 of state-condoned violence.

What we are doing to address their needs - Remote Learning
Solve is looking for solutions that promote remote learning, training, quality learning, including people with disabilities, and indigenous peoples across the LAC region. Our joint solution includes the digital classroom, but it also includes dialogs in the wilderness – guided eco-dialogs to reconnect people with nature and each other after traumatic events, violence, and loss as shown in The Sacred Territory

https://vimeo.com/552604812#at....

The film shows ReConectando´s work with eco-dialog among former antagonists and survivors in the forest. These learning methodologies and resources developed outside the formal educational system. They open minds to the interrelation and interdependency of nature and humanity – valuable tools in the impending global climate crisis.

Aristizabal will present this work in remote forests at the ISHHR webinar, Learning in Times of Crisis: Ending Violence, Healing Trauma, Making Peace. on Friday, September 10 (See video elevator pitch).

ZOOM-link at https://www.facebook.com/ishhr2021.

As Lucia Gonzalez, Colombian Commissioner for Coexistence, states, 
'the Sacred Territory shows how distance can create nearness':
"Sacred Territory is like a summary of the great work Re-Conectando has been doing, but it also sums up the spirit of the Truth Commission, in the sense that despite the differences, precisely because of the differences, it is possible that we will resume our dignity, our equal dignity. Let us regain the humanity that we have lost, in many ways, in the midst of this assimilation of violence as something natural. And let's go back to the joy of living, the enthusiasm for being together, the enthusiasm for sharing a territory that is sacred. It is a sacred territory because it is the territory that we have been given in which to live together - today and hopefully for many years to come."

Together, our alliance will also achieve specific results in education and mental health with an incremental model, and have started out in Antioquia by training: 

• 100 teachers from 10 municipalities to develop socio-emotional capacities in classrooms and in nature (already in progress, led by Corporación Región)
• 20 professional and community-based psychosocial caregivers in Trauma Recovery Techniques (TRT)
• 20 caregivers to implement International Child Development Programme with women, girls, and families   (ICDP Colombia)
• 20 Change Agents to help women prevent Gender-Based Violence (GBV) in their networks, changing behavior, practices, and attitudes (Change Agents) 
• 20 psychosocial caregivers and HRDs in workshops on the GBV Manual

Facilitator teams are engaged from Colombia and the world to continue this work. Many workshops are train-the-trainers labs, where a participant may become a facilitator, continuing to qualify colleagues or associates in her network, and thus creating incremental growth.

In schools, our Colombian partners enable access to quality learning experiences in low-connectivity settings, such as peri-urban and rural schools, with collaborative projects involving teachers and pupils in hands-on experiments, such as Dialog Circles (see attached videos).

While health care repairs what is weakened or hurt, education CAN work to prevent through resource development; the two interact. The primary target groups, teachers and health personal, learn to practice and facilitate the development of resources - both hard (technical) and soft (social and interpersonal) skills. Outcomes will multiply as trainees reach out to classrooms, networks, institutions, and neighborhoods. In collaboration with Corporación Región, we will develop certification models for these skills.

Under-resourced LAC populations are developing skills -both hard (technical) and soft (social and interpersonal) for the work of the future, improving their opportunities and overall well-being.

Colombian partners enable access to quality learning experiences in low-connectivity schools with collaborative projects involving teachers and pupils in hands-on training, such as Dialog Circles(see attached videos).

The Challenge seems expressly fitted to dimensions addressed by ReConectando.org and Hector´s work of reconnecting people in remote forests.

While health care repairs what is weakened or hurt, training can prevent through resource development: the two interact. Front-helpers, teachers, and health personal practice and facilitate resource development.

ISHHR´s solution model, currently deployed in Latin America-Caribbean, helps under-resourced populations to develop necessary skills to improve their lives

Our modus operandi is to carry out capacity-building projects in post-conflict zones every 4 -5 years, culminating in a conference for local and international organizations that work with healing and preventing human rights abuses. 

This we have done since 1987-in France, Costa Rica(1989), Chile(1991), Philippines(1994), South Africa(1998), Croatia(2001), India(2005), Peru (2008), Tblisi(2011), Georgia(2011) and Serbia(2017)-

...but never in Colombia. Hence: "Growth". We have been preparing the ground in Antioquía since 2018. See for example the photos from the first meeting of the Local Organization Committee (2019) in the attached folders

Service providers and representatives of human rights organizations from every continent attend these events to exchange knowledge, experience, and developments in clinical practice, research, and strategies to address the needs of survivors of human rights violations (commendations available on request).

We are not a business; we are trying to change the world, starting in one corner.

ISHHR members are practitioners and academics with state-of-the-art competency in post-traumatic research, care and treatment. Sharing this with interdisciplinary practitioners in post-conflict regions - at the same time that we learn from them - is what makes it innovative.

In each new region, we recruit a Local Organization Committee (LOC) to participate in the capacity building. Since 2018, 20 Colombian-based CSOs have signed up to change attitudes and behavior towards women and to eliminate violence towards human rights defenders. Whether in person or virtual meetings, our interdisciplinary working group will continue to gather and learn from each other to establish a firm foundation for collaboration. Some ISHHR members have neither been in Colombia nor accompanied Human Rights Defenders into forests to facilitate healing in the wild. Thus, what we have to learn from each other may be unique and/or disruptive – a mutual learning process!

In Colombia we cooperate with two universities in the research community (www.udea.edu.co [National Faculty for Public Health] and www.funlam.edu.co), which cultivate education as a conduit for health, strengthening resilience from elementary school to the university level. Together, we plan a 3-year program of capacity building on all levels and a research project on local resilience. An international conference, Learning in Times of Crisis. Ending Violence, Healing Trauma, Building Peace will give local organizations an opportunity to present their work.

Audiovisual Media: disseminating Behavioral Technology

Behavioral technology is what psychiatrists, psychologists, and psychosocial care-givers do, as described more fully below under "evidence that this technology works".

The new technology - hardware developed through neuropsychological research - reveals that the brain´s synapses wither after traumatic events: circuits involving the medial prefrontal cortex become dysfunctional. Recovery occurs after appropriate treatment: mental health specialists' advanced software. Among the clinical technologies (software) used is, for example, EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing), a psychotherapeutic approach that reduces distress from reactions to traumatic experience).

Interpersonal neurobiology is a “consilient” approach that examines the independent fields of knowing - to find the common principles that emerge to paint a picture of the “larger whole” of human experience and development. Interpersonal neurobiology attempts to extract wisdom from more than a dozen different disciplines of science to weave a
picture of human experience and the process of change across the lifespan.  Siegel´s article cited below summarizes the principles of interpersonal neurobiology, with an emphasis on neuroscience findings regarding the mirror neuron system and neural plasticity.

Crowd-Sourced Services / Social Networks

This may apply to our digital dissemination of new behavioral techniques and psychosocial methods of care (described briefly under our Solution). A possible danger for the incremental model could occur if participants begin to teach what they have understood, without being formally certified. As facilitators and organizers, we must be aware of this.

Other Crowd-Sourced methods: Ancestral, traditional tribal practices, as shown in Elevator Pitch.

Behavioral technology:

In health science, see for example the neuro-psychological discoveries of the withering of the brain´s synapses after traumatic events, and the dysfunction of circuits involving the medial prefrontal cortex. Recovering lost functions by means of appropriate treatment and care are advanced software, providing the core technology for mental health specialists. Among the research powering these technological advances, Siegel´s (2012) The Developing Mind: How Relationships and the Brain Interact to Shape Who We Are is an excellent guide to research, incorporating significant scientific and technical advances on cutting-edge topics, including neuroplasticity, epigenetics, mindfulness, and the neural correlates of consciousness.

Siegel, D (2012). The Developing Mind: How Relationships and the Brain Interact to Shape Who We Are. New York, Guilford.

Siegel, D (2006)

• An Interpersonal Neurobiology Approach to Psychotherapy
• Psychiatric Annals. 2006;36(4)
• https://doi-org.ezproxyberklee.flo.org/10.3928/00485713-20060401-06

This knowledge underlies also Trauma Informed Care and Practice for children and youth (Howard Bath, 2004).

In the science of pedagogics, John Hattie’s 2008 book, Visible Learning: A synthesis of over 800 meta-analyses relating to achievement (cited by 4084),pulls together huge amounts of educational research, giving individual elements of teaching and learning a “d” value: an effect size on student learning. The average of these effect sizes, d=0.4, is known as the “hinge point“, a value beyond which we should focus our efforts, and are more likely to achieve significant gains with students. 

Economy and technology develop best in stable societies. Improving education and mental health will help to stabilize Antioquia.

Audiovisual technology

A possible danger for this incremental model might be that participants in such training could begin to teach what they had understood themselves, without being formally certified as facilitators. As facilitators and organizers, we need to be particularly cognizant of this.

Sharing Ancestral technologies and practices

As the solution scales,  there may be security concerns, or ethical risks connected to the exposure of individuals - women of different racial backgrounds using their ancestral technology and practices - when the film of the Sacred Territory is available not only to those who want to see and learn from it but also to those who are mandated to track down and kill indigenous leaders.

We believe, however, that the planned presentation of the film as theater in Bogota in late November this year - at the same time that the Truth Commission is presenting its work to the world – will win the media war.

Our partners reach learners in remote, peri-urban and urban environments- Their work and ours include strategies for parental support, peer interaction, and guided independent work.  Together, we will effect change by means of the training workshops listed under our Solution? The alliance will initiate networks of change. Partner and educational coordinator, Corporación Región, serves teachers in the 10 municipalities of the Aburrá Valley (population 3,726,219) by training them to develop socio-emotional capacities in secondary and middle school pupils (210,242). See attached videos of their programs. With sufficient funding, these programs can expand to cover the whole of Antioquia (population 6,407,000).

The population of Colombia is 51,392,392 and ripe for change.

By means of the training workshops listed under "What is your solution?” our alliance will initiate networks of change. We have signed 5 workshop facilitator teams, both international and Colombian experts in these methods, who:

1) will train 100 teachers in how to develop socio-emotional capacities in the classroom:

2) will train 20 NGOs and community-based psychosocial caregivers in implementing Trauma Recovery Techniques (TRT);

3) will help 20 to improve their parental roles using International Child Development Programme (ICDP);

4) will train 20 women as Change Agents, to teach the prevention of Gender-Based Violence (GBV) in their networks, by changing behavior, practices and attitudes, and

5) will train 20 trainers in the GBV Manual and qualify them as facilitators in the method, with the goal of reaching 200 psychosocial caregivers and HRDs in the next year.

Continuing the presentation of our plan for replication through incremental growth:

Using such a model for replication and spreading, one extended train-the-trainers workshop can potentially qualify 10 participants. If each participant formally qualifies as a facilitator, she  can train 10 friends or colleagues in her network over several weeks: 10=>100=>1000=>10,000=>100,000=> 1,000,000 in 5 steps in approximately one year.

The numbers suggested are of course optimistic; ensuring replication requires professional supervision and eyes-on follow-up. Yet if all workshops are only a fraction as successful, those influenced would make an impression on Antióquía in 2 years, and on Colombian culture and mores within 5 years.

MEASURING OUR PROGRESS

The end results of educating more girls and minority pupils to a higher level relate to the fact that education and positive engagement in society reduce violence and contribute to a more peaceful, productive, and innovative society.

We will track statistics and register changes in Gender and Race-Based Violence:

• Decrease in female mortality ss GBV and Race-Based Violence decreases and accountability of security services improves
• Decrease in female morbidity as access to and quality of health care for women/minorities improve due to participation of Colombian service providers in a global network
• Increase in secondary education, particularly for girls and minorities. Although our target is to train professionals in education and health who work with young women and minorities, the end goal is to empower them to pursue their interests and commit to education.

In order to monitor systemic improvements in education and gender-based violence over five years, we will:        

Track statistics and register changes in school attendance and results:

•  
  • National examination results girls in secondary school
  • Percentages of girls and minority students graduating
  • Young women and minority students entering high school and higher education

ISHHR is an International voluntary NGO, partnering with 20 Colombian CSOs

1 full-time staff (CEO)

12 part-time staff (members of the Norwegian secretariat)

12 members of the International Council with an advisory role.

In addition, supporting and receiving inspiration from the Local Organizing Committee (LOC), the 20 organizations mentioned.

The secretariat in Norway is quite diverse, with members from Colombia ("representative of those we serve"), the UK, the US, and Russia as well as Norway and with professional experience from conflict and post-conflict regions (in parentheses below). Although this may not be true of all "refugee workers” in the world: in Norway, the role implies expectations of tolerance, respect for diversity, equity, inclusion, and community-building skills. 

• Jone Schanche Olsen, psychiatrist, leads Transcultural Psychiatric Center, Stavanger University Hospital (Cambodia)
• Lovise Angen Krogstad, psychologist, social anthropologist
• Rolf Vårdal, clinical physiotherapist (Peru)
• Marit C. Borchgrevink, child psychologist
• Patrick O´Loughlin, child-psychologist (Botswana and Tanzania).
• Sofia Colorado Valencia, psychologist from Colombia (Colombia)
• Ana Maria Navarro Melendro, psychologist from Colombia (Colombia)
• Odd Harald Røkenes, specialist in clinical psychology (Chile)
• Valeria Markova Ph.D. in psychology on migration health

CEO Øverland has worked with refugees from Cambodia, Vietnam, Chile, Afghanistan, Eritrea, Somalia, Syria, Iraq, Palestine and the Balkans since the 1990s; PhD on survival strategies among indigenous Khmer (Overland 2013).

Since 2018, the ISHHR Council has had 11 delegates representing Netherlands, Turkey, Uganda, Serbia, Spain, Norway, Colombia, UK, Georgia, USA, and Australia. Read about them on https.ishhr.com. The 11 members provide the secretariat with advice and inspiration from long professional careers in conflict and post-conflict settings.

The leadership team, or Executive Committee (ExCom), consists of the CEO/Secretary General, Treasurer, International Coordinator, Treasurer, and Secretary. The ExCom leads the secretariat and is permanently on call.

Most importantly, our leadership team also represents the 20 organizations of the LOC:  CSOs in Colombia, living from day to day and doing what they can to support the most vulnerable:
To repeat the list, the more than 50 % woman-led CSOs are in bold script: Caritas Colombiana, Corporacción Región, Cruz Roja Colombiana Seccional Antioquia, Fundación Forjando Futuros, Fundación ICDP, Fundación Oriéntame, CIASE, Humanas, ONU Mujeres, Pastoral Social Medellín, PBI, Reconectando, Sisma Mujer, Abogados sin Fronteras, Casa Tres Patios, Centro Fe y Cultura, Codacop, Comité Internacional Cruz Roja, Conciudadania and Universidad de Antioquía.

We are proud to work with such a diverse group, both in regard to gender and ethnicity.

Several have published on ethnicity, including: Overland, G. (2021).  Health and survival of indigenous Khmer: displaced and exiled. In Danto, D. and Zanganeh, M (Eds.)  Indigenous Knowledge and Mental Health.  New York: Springer.

Many conflict and post-conflict countries struggle. This year has raised global awareness of unimaginable suffering in wide-flung regions. Colombia, in spite of its endless war, has somehow managed to keep its people and its nature afloat. What can we learn from them?

ISHHR is not a powerful force with governmental backing, but a constellation of experienced professionals eager to share their skills with others. Because of the enthusiasm of Colombian partners, we have accepted their call to help.

But needfinancial support: this is the main barrier, which a T-Prize can help us overcome

Antioquía has persevered in spite of the denigration of Human Rights. Antioquía´s resilience, described by the leader of the Truth commission below, will be the subject of a research project in collaboration with our Academic/Scientific Committee partner, Steven Orozco Arcile, head of the National Faculty for Public Health at the Universidad de Antioquía. 

Committee members in Europe and the Americas:
Catholic University Luis Amigó. Luz Marina Arango Gómez, Dean, Psychology and Social Sciences
Centro de Atencion Psicosocial, Peru. Carmen Wurst, psychologist,Truth Commission member.
Spanish Commission for Refugees (CEAR).  Javier Pedraz                             De Hemisfeer, The Netherlands. Psychiatrist Boris Droždek
Clinic for psychosomatics and trauma, Sorlandet Hospital, Norway. Dept.Head Birgit Lie                                                                              Centro de Trauma, U. de Coimbra, Portugal. psychologist Joana Becker Transcultural Psychiatric Centre. Stavanger Univ. Hospital, Norway.: psychologist Domnine Lecoq                                                                 Boston College Center for Human Rights and İnternational Justice +M.E. Tech. Univ., Turkey. Professor Ozgur Erdur Baker

 More Detail below

The Colombian Truth Commission website describes each department in Colombia, its struggles, its strengths.

In Antioquia, Some background factors persist:

“All armed groups involved in the armed conflict in Colombia are present [and] unfortunately, all forms of victimization: massacres, enforced disappearances, kidnappings, extrajudicial executions, forced displacements and recruitments, sexual violence against girls, boys and young people, among others. These dynamics of violence have produced a profound collective impact and affected such processes as social organization, democracy, and mobilization in demand of rights”.

At the same time

“Efforts to address the problems in Antioquia have succeeded in consolidating a broad and diverse social fabric of collective action, resistance and resilience. By different perspectives and ways of acting, Antioquia has met the impact of armed confrontation and the transformation of its environment, thanks to the leadership of ethnic organizations, of women, of youth, trade unions and of defence of human rights.”[1]

Thus, there is positive social development in this region. Our project will approach the problems named above by working with the strengths and mobilizing the resources our local partners have used: synergy with local leaders, cooperation with ethnic and women´s organizations, trade unions, and research processes, both in health and educational institutions and civil society. How did they do it? What can Antioquia teach us?

[1] https://comisiondelaverdad.co/en-los-territorios/despliegue-territorial/antioquia-y-eje-cafetero (our translation). In addition, “research processes on the armed conflict have been developed, both by civil society and by academia and institutions, an invaluable contribution to the work of the Truth Commission”.

1. Abogados sin Fronteras,
2. Caritas Colombiana,
3. Centro Fe y Cultura, 
4. Codacop, , http://www.codacop.org.co
5. Comité Internacional Cruz Roja,
6. Conciudadania
7. Corporación Región , http://www.region.org.co
8. Cruz Roja Colombiana, Seccional Antioquia,
9. Fundación Forjando Futuros, 
10. Fundación ICDP,
11. Fundación Oriéntame,
12. CIASE,
13. Humanas,
14. ONU Mujeres,
15. Pastoral Social Medellín, 
16. PBI, , http://www.pbi.org.co
17. Reconectando, http://www.reconectando.org.co
18. Sisma Mujer,
19. Universidad de Antioquía,   www.udea.edu.co
20. Universidad Catolica Luis Amigo www.funlam.edu.co

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  • We would like to partner with them in relation to the unique profile of each organization, the focus of their work.  Some act as living shields for vulnerable populations and Human Rights Defenders. Persons with DisabilitieIs, including: rural populations in remote areas, Minorities & Previously Excluded Populations.
    
    We look forward to supporting the work in person.