Schoolchildren in China’s Sichuan province — which was devastated by a massive earthquake 19 months ago — have new opportunities to experience full and meaningful lives, thanks in part to a long-term development project assisted by Southern Baptists.
What began as an effort to help Sichuan’s children deal with trauma caused by the magnitude 7.9 quake has grown into a first-of-its-kind partnership with five of China’s leading universities to train counselors for Sichuan’s schools, said Pam Wolf, who with her husband, Ben, leads work in the Asia Rim for BGR International, the Singapore-based parent organization of Baptist Global Response (BGR).
“After the earthquake, it was recognized that China has no training in helping in trauma counseling and this was seen by many as a critical need at this point,” Wolf said. “What began with a partnership with one university — Southwest University of Nationalities in Chengdu — has now spread to five or more universities, including the leading teacher’s university in Beijing and the leading university in Beijing in the area of psychology.”
An important part of the training in trauma counseling is encouraging teachers to become comfortable with the hug as a comforting or affirming touch. Chinese parents generally refrain from showing their children physical affection, so hugging is foreign to many Chinese.
“The culture teaches that you must help your children become independent,” Wolf said. “This is done by most by cutting off the hugging and kissing of the small child once they reach the age of 3 or 4 years old. So when trying to work through traumatic things, physical comfort is not an option.”
The training program uses a set of six books designed to help teachers walk through the effectsof post-traumatic stress syndrome with the children in their classrooms. It also uses a “hug therapy” teddy bear that has the Chinese characters for “peace” and “joy” stitched on the bottoms of its feet, Ben Wolf explained. Teachers use the bears to help children begin the process of emotional healing — a dynamic made all the more powerful because Chinese children normally don’t have toys.
Each university involved in the project is working with a particular district in the quake area, Wolf said. When school teachers in a given district are trained in trauma counseling techniques, the university that has taken responsibility for that district sends in professors to do some of the lecturing. Teachers attend six training seminars to receive a certificate in trauma counseling.
“This program is the first of its kind in China,” Wolf added. “One of the results is that some of the teachers being trained will go back and become school counselors. There has never been such a position before in the schools. This will open lots of doors for personal interaction with students and with their families. Recovery from such a massive disaster is a long-term challenge.”
One reason the program is expected to have an extra-profound impact is the fact that many Chinese children are sent to boarding schools at a young age and teachers become the primary influence in their lives. The program begins by helping Sichuan’s teachers deal with their own grief, in order to prepare them to help their students.
Pam Wolf describes how teachers in one training session experienced their own breakthrough in dealing with the trauma they had experienced.
“The hugging exercise began with an activity in which nine volunteers played roles of mother, father and child,” Wolf said. “The ‘parents’ in the scenario were blindfolded and instructed to hug the ‘children.’ When the hugging began, it was quite difficult for them and very distant, but as it continued you could see a change take place. Tears began to flow as they shared their feelings.”
“Dealing with their own grief will equip these teachers to help thousands of hurting Chinese students deal with the trauma of the earthquake as they all move on and rebuild their lives,” she said. (BGR)
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