With dignified humility, Edouarnus Estivil calls himself a direct victim of the January 2010 earthquake: it destroyed his Port-au-Prince home, paralyzed his sister, and killed his mother, the head of his household.
The earthquake altered his life forever. A year later, his life was altered once again – by a trauma-healing training.
“After the earthquake, I didn’t know how I was going to face life,” said Estivil, 30. “The trauma training allowed me to give another direction to my life and set some goals.”
The training helped him begin to process trauma stemming from various aspects of his life.
“Before I took the training, I didn’t know the level of sickness inside of me,” he said.
Wozo, the organization that runs the trauma-healing program, began in October 2010 with funds from six denominations and organizations, including Mennonite Central Committee.
The Haitian program is an adaptation of Virginia-based Eastern Mennonite University’s strategies for trauma awareness and resilience program, which began after the Sept. 11 attacks in the U.S. The program also addresses the broader topics of conflict, justice, and peace.
Wozo, which has secured funding until 2013, is the first trauma healing program initiated by EMU that has workers in-country.
And it’s growing quickly, partly thanks to Estivil.
After conducting research in southeast Haiti with Christian Reformed World Relief Committee (CRWRC), he learned that while some people had received lots of material support from multiple organizations, none of them received trauma healing.
So Estivil got to work. He wrote a proposal to CRWRC to replicate the Wozo program for those he works among. Then, he led six Haitians – three men and three women – through the five-day training. In turn, these six people have each reached 350 people – that’s 2,100 people in less than nine months.
“People have responded very positively,” said Estivil, who works for the Christian Reformed Church of Haiti, a CRWRC partner. “Participants often ask the trainers for their phone numbers so they can keep in contact.”
The trainings, Estivil said, help people address all aspects of trauma: physical, emotional, psychological, and spiritual.
“People sometimes think that a person is only [traumatized] physically, but there are issues inside that may not come out,” he said. “This trauma program allows us to address all types of problems.”
Wozo offers two trauma-healing trainings. The first is led by Haitians; the second, more advanced workshop, by EMU staff.
Resilience and restoration
In Haitian culture, the wozo tree is a well-known symbol of resilience and restoration. If the tree gets knocked over, it can straighten up again after a few days and continue growing. There is no better Creole word for resilience, according to executive director Michel Garly.
Garly, 34, was an MCC Haiti national staff worker for three years. In August 2010, he participated in the first trauma-healing training in Haiti.
In January 2011, Michel led the first public training for Haitians. Since then, 248 people have participated in 10 trainings.
In turn, he said, these people have gone on to train thousands more across the country. “The idea is not only for [Wozo staff] to lead trainings but for people who have been trained at level two to help train people at level one,” Garly said.
Gary Auguste, who took the level-one training, noted that trauma healing is not just for earthquake victims.
“We live in a society where everyone has a bitterness about something, and we are not normally able to share it,” he said. “We may have headaches and nightmares and not even know we are traumatized.”
Auguste, 33, said he will always remember how the training gave people the freedom to cry. Harry Thelusmai, Wozo program officer, said all the trainings follow the same format, regardless of whether participants have earthquake trauma.
“An earthquake is a type of violence, and if a person is a victim of any type of violence, they can find tools to help them,” he said.
The training discusses the cycle of violence, including how victims can become aggressors.
“If you want to be healed from violence, you need to break the cycle of violence,” Thelusmai said. “If you can break that cycle, you can benefit yourself and all of society.”
Trauma is universal, he said, and even those not already affected by trauma may be at some point in the future.
“This program is one of the best things Haiti has received after the earthquake,” Thelusmai said.
“It is a blessing for us to run this program,” he said. “People are able to face the reality of life because of this program. Our vision is to have a resilient country, a country that can face the issues we have.”
