Program Development for Refugee Youth

In: Peace review: the international quarterly of world peace, Band 12, Heft 3, S. 431-433

Abstract

Describes efforts to teach peer counseling to adolescents living in a children's refugee camp in Subotica, Serbia, during 1993, & establishment of the "Peer Link Club," an international organization of adolescents/young adults trained to implement & teach peer counseling. The process involves learning the skills/techniques of active listening & problem solving in order to counsel other young people with traumatized pasts. Almost all of the children in camp had a parent or other close relative harmed in the war. Difficulties involved in getting the wary adolescents to begin communicating are described, as well as the progressive increase in group cohesion & sharing that occurred during the course of the workshop. Strategies used to create a context for relationship building are examined, along with the use of role-playing to teach participants how to engage in active listening & deal with stressful conversations. The project enabled young people to begin the long process of overcoming the impact of war & reviving their interrupted adolescence. Graduates eagerly carried the project to other refugee camps. J. Lindroth