By Doris Jenis Adamu
The 2019 Women Arise Leadership Conference was held in Arusha, Tanzania, and I was present as the representative from Nigeria together with Dr. Mrs. Rhoda Gawarto Manzo. It lasted for a week and was aimed at educating and equipping our team on the values of communication for resilience in trauma affected communities. Nigeria has been faced with much trauma, thereby triggering the need for such knowledge on how to manage, handle, and curtail such situations, and also how to communicate with trauma survivors.
During the Women Arise conference I learnt that building a peaceful community starts with us through providing love, having self-dignity and being trustworthy, and also the knowing the dangers and experiences on how to live after having experienced trauma. I leant also that the body is connected or linked to the mind and spirit, so anything happening to the body will be felt in the spirit and mind, and also anything affecting the spirit will be felt in the body and mind.
I also learnt about trauma, its effect on behavior, its preventive measures, and how to successfully avoid re-traumatization. I now better understand the effectiveness of Behavior Change Communications, which is changing one’s life through the passing of information from one person to another. BCC’s effectiveness depends on how the information reaches the targeted person and how well it is understood.
I intend to apply everything I have learnt through my communication processes, having a sense of self-integrity, being trustworthy, remaining positive, and being a good listener to the traumatized. I connect well with community members and will continue working to understand them, all while using communication technologies like the phone, radio, television, Harper Hill Global’s Visual Classroom, and the Internet. My plan is to use these platforms to relate crucial information and knowledge about everything I have learnt because knowledge shared is a bold step towards achieving a better and peaceful community.