By Yusef Taylor, @FlexDan_YT
The Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation (CSVR) concluded a six-day training of trainers on Saturday 19th March 2022. CSVR is a South African based NGO, that bore out of South Africa’s transitional justice process. Psychologist and Project manager for CSVR, Ms Jacqui Chowles explained that she also worked for the Truth Reconciliation and Reparations Commission’s Victim Support Unit. Now she supports the Gambia’s Transitional Justice process by training caregivers and providing subgrants to replicate body mapping initiatives.
As lead trainers Ms Chowles and Ms Mariama Jobarteh of Fantanka were responsible for training representatives from four organisations namely; Fantanka, WILL, ANEKED and Victim Center. Currently, there is a body-map exhibition highlighting victims of former President Yahya Jammeh’s regime at Memory House, hosted by ANEKED in Kanifing Layout. Ms Chowles and sister organisation Fantanka were both involved in that body map exhibition.
Body Mapping and the Healing Journey
According to the Memory House exhibition booklet, “body mapping is another way to share traumatic histories, through art. Body mapping [is] — an arts-based research method that has been adapted many times over the years by therapists, social workers, researchers and activists”.
“Where words fail to describe the trauma of a past experience, art can be an alternate way for survivors to express their story. But body maps show the whole life history of a person – not just the painful and traumatic parts, but also joyful memories, sources of personal strength, and dreams for the future. In this way, the process of creating body maps can be part of a healing journey” read the booklet.
Ms Chowles explains that when victims experience human rights violations a lot of their “identity becomes focused on [their] victimisation so it’s a process of bringing together one’s life narrative that we are in many ways more than just a violation that happened. That’s the individual healing”.
From her experience as a caregiver, Ms Chowles says body-mapping gives people space and time to think about their life experiences both the good and the bad. The challenges that confront victims “through violations [is that] many people lose their hope for the future and an important part of the body-map is thinking about your hopes and dreams for the future. And usually it’s a long process”.
From Trainee to Trainer
Ms Anne Marie Hughes who works as a social worker for Fantanka said she never had any idea about body mapping “so coming to this training was [her] first time of taking part in drawing body mapping”. She now feels she is equipped with the knowledge to create body maps. When asked if she can now train others on the art of body mapping, she responded “yes, I’m better equipped, and I know that representing my organisation here I can implement it where ever I go especially when I’m working with my clients as a psychosocial officer”.
One of the trainees, Mr Ba Lamin Ceesay, told our reporter that he did not appreciate drawing in the past but participating in the training and drawing his body map reminded him a lot about his past, present and future. Mr Ceesay works for CSVR and the Gambia Center for Victims of Human Rights Violations. When asked about his plans to train others on the art of body-mapping, Mr Ceesay noted that if it wasn’t for Ramadan, they would have started to train some victims on body-mapping techniques.
A psychosocial officer at the Gambia Center for Victims of Human Rights Violations, Ms Oumie Sainey detailed her experience from the training. According to Ms Sainey, the skills she developed on body mapping reminded her of her early childhood and was an opportunity to document “things she never realised”. She says the exercise reminded her of her strengths and weaknesses as well as her hopes for the future.
Sub Grants to Replicate Body-Mapping
Our reporter spoke to one of the trainers, Ms Mariama Jobarteh, the CEO and founder of Fantanka, an organisation that promotes sexual and reproductive health. “If you feel it, you can know it,” said Ms Jobarteh who explains that it’s important for trainers to undertake this exercise to better empathise with victims when training them to create their own body map. Ms Jobarteh explains that Fantanka strives to address sexual and gender-based violence and provide mental health and psychosocial support for victims of human rights violations.
Speaking on future steps of the project Ms Jobarteh says, “it’s not just let’s train and we go. CSVR is providing subgrants to these facilitators who will also go out in the communities. They can choose which communities they should go to reciprocate these services. We need to find a way of tailoring it to our culture”.
“These grants are there to help other people narrate their stories and benefit from some of the tools that we are providing,” said Ms Jobarteh. She explained that “it’s very important that before we go out there to provide support to people, we know what we are doing. Let us not just provide support because we want to, if you don’t know what you doing just excuse yourself from it otherwise you can cause more harm than good”.
The training of trainers is supported through the Global Initiative for Truth, Justice and Reconciliation and the subgrants are funded through the International Sites of Conscience.