Children at Risk-Blog Post #1

A few days ago I watched a documentary titled Children Underground (2001). The film, directed by Edet Belzberg, highlights the lives of 5 homeless children who find refuge and “family” in underground train stations in Bucharest, Romania. If we look at the history of Romania we are reminded that when Nicolae Ceausecu was in power, before the fall of Communism, he banned all citizens from using any type of contraceptive. He encouraged and spread propaganda telling the people to have more and more children.  It’s no necessary to describe to you how delusional this man truly was, but the world saw evidence of this backfiring and self-centered idea when 20/20 aired a special (1990) featuring the horrific condition of Romanian orphanages.  During this time, Romania had more orphans per capita than any other country. Fast-forward 11 years later, and we have the film that broke my heart. While I encourage you to watch it for yourself there are some common themes I want to share. Most of these children had parents, but the adults either could not take care of them, or the children were so violently abused that they decided to run away. All of the children featured in the film were addicted to paint; an addiction that generally began in kindergarten.  Almost all of the children had been through so many orphanages and shelters they had lost count.

The most heartbreaking to me, was the story of a girl who had to be reminded that she came from a man and woman—that she indeed had a father and a mother.  The girl was almost animalistic in form and action. It was like a light bulb illuminated in her head one day and she realized she had a soul, a body, parents—someone had created her. She had been passed through so many institutions she thought she was just produced or created at one of them.  She had no sense of mental or physical attachment and had reduced herself to an unintentional monster just trying to survive.

All this documentary research to say, children experience poverty in many ways that are different than adults. In this documentary we see a few of those who pass by take pity on the smaller children; the more “adult” a child looked the less attention they received from a caring stranger. In fact older children forced younger children to beg on their behalf. This causes me to question, if older children do not have many chances for charity and kindness, then what chance if any do adults have? Additionally perhaps children are given a bit more leniency when it comes to their “ownership” of poverty. Very few people in this film blamed the children for their situation—the general public and social workers pointed the finger at the parents. However, in the case of an adult (I believe even more so among the homeless in the U.S.), they are always to blame for their problems and hardships. I am in no ways suggesting that a child in poverty has it “better”, but perhaps the nice stranger is slightly more compassionate towards children.

A key takeaway from the Miles and Wright text Celebrating Children (2003) is the reminder that during his time on earth, Christ implores people to practice and adopt the attributes that children can easily attain: humility, faith, trust etc. When the disciples forbade children to approach Christ and continued to brush them away, Christ stopped and reprimanded them. What the disciples were doing parallels the notion that children are useless, or that they have no place in society as Miles and Wright explain in their history and back-story of children and theology. Christ stated “Let the little children come unto me”. And then he reached out and touched them and embraced them. Christ made children a priority.

One element that is true for both children and adults who live in poverty is the deconstruction of the family system. In Chapter 4 of Celebrating Children, “The Development of Children in Their Families and Communities” we read  how the drive for capitalism and the effort to “get out” of poverty continues to break family bonds. Families in rural or underdeveloped areas must send a member off to work. While living in Singapore, many locals and expats had maids or “helpers” that came from underdeveloped countries in Asia: the Philippines, Indonesia. Myanmar and Sri Lank to name a few. These women, mothers, daughters and wives were separated from their children and sometimes husbands for decades at a time in order to keep their family from destitute.  Adults and children alike are exploited in so many different ways in order to survive. Some obvious examples are: child prostitution, sex trafficking, and dangerous working condition in factories, mines and construction sights.  No only is the family unit forced to be separated due to poverty, but many times their jobs cause their lives to be at risk on a daily basis.

While all this can seem “heavy” or negative, I truly believe that children are the best examples of hope and faith. I am excited to continue the readings and class discussion in hopes that we may not just brush children aside, but embrace and value them, hear their voices and stories, and empower them.

Multi-culteral Forms of Therapy…follow the artistic road.

Yesterday I met with my good friend Gail Kretchmer. Gail is an author, whose work has appeared in the New York Times and other publications, along her first work of fiction The Damnable Legacy of a Minister's Wife (2013). While Gail is a personal friend and someone who I hold in high regard, we have had many talks over lunch that have to do with trauma, suicide, traumatic events from our past, marriage and divorce, writing etc. Gail is what I would call a  "safe person"--I talk to her freely without feeling judgment.

When I met up with Gail yesterday our conversation centred around her work with domestic violence survivors and cancer patients. Gail runs therapeutic writing workshops for these two demographics of women. Additionally she sometimes runs writing workshops at elderly living homes. She explained to me the process in which she led the class and what outcomes she had personally seen. What she shared with me was incredibly moving. She shared of women who had been abused being able to write about their experience OR write about something else that still envoked and painted the same feelings. Sometimes writing gave women the courage to think about leaving an abusive situation. In sharing their stories women were able to connect with one another and not feel alone. Some women were able to write, but then unable to share with the group. Every woman was different, with a different story to write or tell. Sometimes Gail gives the groups topics to write about, such as: summer, a road trip, children etc. Additionally she reviews a writing tool at the beginning of each group such as: metaphor, imagery etc. This helps the authors paint a more clear picture in their story or what they want to write about. These workshops intrigued me years ago when Gail first told me she did this, and after yesterday's meeting I'm a firm believer that this type of therapy can truly cross multicultural barriers.

A few weeks ago when I was meeting with NA staff I told them about a few of my suggestions I had for their therapy curriculum and practices.
Group therapy-a safe place where girls can talk through what is going in their life. This will probably be new to them as therapy is generally considered a very Western practice, but Alex, myself and the two staff on site in Thailand discussed how we could make this work in their context. We decided it would be very important as it would help build trust among the girls, allow for vulnerability and allow the staff to hear from the women. Because we don't believe the girls in this cultural context would just start talking on their own, we decided that perhaps asking a question at the beginning or mentioning a certain theme or word would be useful to get the conversations going.

Art therapy-This is very important to me. Art comes in all forms-drama, dance, poetry, creative writing etc. There have been many articles and items I've read that point to the success of art therapy when practiced and introduced with not only multi cultural patients, but also multicultural patients who have experienced trauma. During our meeting yesterday Gail introduced me to the National Association of Poetry Therapy. I'm going to do some digging around, as there is a lady who works for this organisation who uses poetry therapy with her immigrant patients and participants.
Creative Writing-Obviously this is part of art therapy, but this one is probably the most important to me. People feel empowered when they are free to share their story. That being said, sometimes shame, guilt, loss, sadness and embarrassment stands in the way of an audible voice, so I truly believe writing is key to healing. Gail introduced me to book titles that had to do with studies surrounding how individuals who write tend to have less mind and body stress, sleep better, are less anxious etc etc. (I'll have to read the books and report back). This started getting my brain turning to the direction of refugees and creative writing…more on that later as I think it will be a thesis starting point, but for now the plethora of knowledge from yesterday's meeting is a good starting point as I move from Field Work (that will always be a part of me) to thesis brainstorming and writing.