During the first meeting of the group in Byumba I was beset by a great num- ber of questions: Did, or didn’t, the group consist of a mixture of people who during the war and genocide had ended up in opposite camps? Were they afraid that distressing memories might be actualised? What had the trainees endured? Had they been caught up in the dramatic events? Had they faced impossible dilemmas? Had they ended up in the exodus from neighbouring Congo? Had they served as child-soldiers? Had they been physically abused? Had they lost relatives, friends, people close to them? Did they have any rela- tives in captivity, in Congo or in the diaspora? Had they been able to achieve closure after mourning their losses? What did the trainees understand by regaining dignity?
It is important to choose the right moment to ask any follow-up questions with care and to consider carefully what the best way for asking these ques- tions might be. If questions about sensitive issues are asked at too early a stage, this might activate an emotional process that trainees may well feel to be threatening. And that, obviously, is not what the training has in mind. And, it might discourage trainees from engaging into contact with each other if the ‘expert’ over-emphatically profiles herself by asking so many questions. After all, the trainees are used to following authority.
5.1 Basic assumptions
When conducting the intervention, it is of key importance that:
• Trainees’ safety is not endangered.
• Experiences of dehumanisation are acknowledged, without memories be- ing actualised.
531236-L-bw-ASC 531236-L-bw-ASC 531236-L-bw-ASC 531236-L-bw-ASC Processed on: 8-5-2019 Processed on: 8-5-2019 Processed on: 8-5-2019
Processed on: 8-5-2019 PDF page: 94PDF page: 94PDF page: 94PDF page: 94
94
• Intervention activities fit in with the group-oriented character of the training.
All questions should be based on these basic principles.
5.2 Inventorying questions
Playing the game of memory created the first moment of relaxation in the trainees’ being together and, with it, a good moment to ask the inventorying questions. I put my questions to the trainees (cf. box XVII) and suggested that they answer them in writing, in Kinyarwanda. I asked the interpreter to write the questions in Kinyarwanda on the flip-over and explained that the interpreter was going to help me make an anonymised overview of the answers. I then wrote the answers, once they had been translated back into English, on the flip-over sheets (cf. section 5.3.4). I kept these in the training room for weeks so that each group member could look at them again and again and ask questions about them. This visualisation helped me come up with instructive questions.
I explained that I asked these questions to get an idea of the burden that the group carried on their shoulders – in terms of the whole impact of the war and violence – and of the capacity, or possibilities, the present company had. I said that the answers could help me find suitable questions and exercises and assignments for the training. It was also agreed that the completed ques- tionnaires were returned to the trainees because of reasons of privacy and sensitive information.
Box XVII Questions
Please answer the questions anonymously 1 Are you a man or a woman?
2 How old are you? 3 Are you married?
4 Do you have any children? If yes, how many? 5 Where do you live?
6 How long have you been living in this place? 7 Have you lost any relatives in the war/genocide? 8 How many?
9 Have you lost any neighbours, friends, colleagues, class mates in the war/genocide?
531236-L-bw-ASC 531236-L-bw-ASC 531236-L-bw-ASC 531236-L-bw-ASC Processed on: 8-5-2019 Processed on: 8-5-2019 Processed on: 8-5-2019
Processed on: 8-5-2019 PDF page: 95PDF page: 95PDF page: 95PDF page: 95
95
10 How many?11 Do you have a job? What kind of work do you do?
12 What is the highest level of education that you have attained? 13 What other training programmes have you taken part in? 14 Do you have any special knowledge? What kind of knowledge? 15 Do you have any special skills? What skills?
16 Do you as a rule sleep well?
17 How many trainees did you already know at the start of this group?
Justification by the trainer
Question 1, and a summary of the answers to it, ensures that the trainees know whether attention has been paid to a balanced group composition as to age and gender. This topic may also come up when the subject ‘facilitating a sociotherapy group’ is discussed. Information about trainees’ marital status may provide leads for a discussion about social roles in families, communes or church communities. Information about problems arising from murdered, missing, adopted and/or extra-marital children – whether or not born from rape – affects the way in which one can (has to) show an interest in children and ask after them. Much the same goes for the responses to questions 7, 8, 9 and 10, about loss of relatives, loved ones, neighbours, friends, colleagues and fellow students. Any interest shown as a part of the training approach should be consistently cautious and convey personal ‘nearness’. For this is about the exact opposite of the indifference of mass violence.
Answers to answers 5 and 6 may indicate whether questions and interven- tions should or should not be situated in the training area. Do the trainees live in the area where the training is given? Have they fled a place of evil? Have they been forced to move house? Have they been engaged to help re- build the structure of the disrupted society as civil servants, primary school teachers or nurses?
Responses to question 11 give insight into trainees’ skills, which is useful when fleshing out the follow-up training in sociotherapy. Is someone capa- ble of coaching a small team, for instance? Responses to question 12 reveal educational level: have (some) trainees already attained the level of a UAS (University of Applied Sciences) or is this still to be achieved? Answers to question 13 show what trainees have already learnt and how this could be
531236-L-bw-ASC 531236-L-bw-ASC 531236-L-bw-ASC 531236-L-bw-ASC Processed on: 8-5-2019 Processed on: 8-5-2019 Processed on: 8-5-2019
Processed on: 8-5-2019 PDF page: 96PDF page: 96PDF page: 96PDF page: 96
96
shared during the training. Question 14 provides insight into special knowl- edge that could become meaningful in a range of fields in the organisation to be set up. Answers to question 15 give insight into any accomplishments trainees bring to the training. Responses to question 16 indicate whether the trainees can cope with a three-month period of training, followed by a thir- ty-three-month practice period. Answers to question 17 may create open- ings for a group discussion about the significance of training groups having a mixed composition.
5.3 Review
In all groups trainees worked intensely to complete the questionnaires. As a rule, they needed about one hour for this. In Kakata the questionnaires were handed out and completed at home.
I suspected that the review meeting would be better facilitated if the group were seated in a circle. In Byumba this circle was made in a corner of the training room using the available garden chairs there. Without explaining this action as yet, I invited the trainees to sit down.
Before I had asked any evaluation question, they were keen to tell me that since the genocide they had never been questioned in such a way in the com- pany of others. And, that during the annual national genocide commemora- tions, the suffering of one group (no ethnicity was mentioned) is given rec- ognition while another group’s is not. Again unasked, they added that they saw answering the questions as an activity that made them feel recognised. I also used the circular setting for that day’s afternoon assembly and I asked how the trainees liked this arrangement. Some noticed the difference with sitting behind tables but were unable to articulate this properly on the spot. I only explained that I wished to create a different atmosphere by arranging the chairs in a different corner of the room. One of the youngest trainees was applauded by the others when she remarked that the day had been very inter- esting for her because of the experience of equality.
Occasional trainees requested a private talk after the review and evaluation of the questions. Pastors, local authorities or laypersons trained to recognise psychotrauma usually grant such a request. They view this as normal, espe- cially in the light of the post-genocide situation. I always ascertained first if a
531236-L-bw-ASC 531236-L-bw-ASC 531236-L-bw-ASC 531236-L-bw-ASC Processed on: 8-5-2019 Processed on: 8-5-2019 Processed on: 8-5-2019
Processed on: 8-5-2019 PDF page: 97PDF page: 97PDF page: 97PDF page: 97