The video above is focused on the actual work we do. To  learn more about the war in Liberia, here’s a great 52 minute documentary worth watching:

Liberia – An Uncivil War 

In our mission statement, we emphasize a goal for peace building. We believe that in order to re- establish peace in a post-war country, it is necessary to rehabilitate former combatants and war-affected youth, integrate them back into society and work along with communities to lower stigmatization. It is also important to work with war victims who are unwilling to forgive and let go of feelings of revenge towards perpetrators.

Most rehabilitation programs for former combatants are centered on vocational and educational services, while most peace building integration efforts focus on establishing dialogues between families and communities. But when participants attempt to sit and learn in a classroom, oftentimes the drug dependence, post-traumatic stress, depression and abuse – the silent consequences of war – make it impossible for them to succeed. Traumatic stress transports their minds and bodies back to war scenes and memories of torture and abuse while the professor is teaching something new. With depression, most enter rehabilitation programs with no confidence that they are capable to succeed or become a ‘good’ person, while their bodies are craving the substances that most were forced to take during the war in order to fight. Today, drugs are the remedy to numb post-traumatic stress symptoms, which only leads to more crime and violence. Among families and communities, the perpetrators’ traumatic stress is often expressed through avoidance and violent behavior. When these defense mechanisms are not addressed, they become obstacle to dialogue and they obstruct the mission of building peace.

Although there are many NGOs on ground doing outstanding work with peace building, our expertise is psychological intervention. Our goal is to fill a gap in existing efforts to build peace and to alleviate poverty. Second Chance Africa brings specialized state-of-the-art clinical services for post-traumatic stress, depression, and substance abuse and addiction, not only through direct services to the Liberian war-affected population, but also through consulting services for NGOs and government committees in order to complement their programs with clinical tools they can trust.

Our team is currently working to launch next week a peace talk project in vulnerable communities to counsel, guide and assist potentially rebellious youth to help maintain peace during the election. Stay tuned for more details here atSecondChanceAfrica.org.

An initial farming project at Bensenville village is in process, which will provide labor to inmates under a community volunteer program.

Together, we will be able to combine PEP-Liberia’s technical and vocational skills training as well as agriculture for semi-illiterate and illiterate women with our psycho-education and rehabilitation program for post-war and post-conflict individuals (war perpetrators and victims) in various communities, prisons, refugee camps and ghettos.

Our staff reported a very positive response from the inmates to the program. We started on a lecture based psychoeducation workshop format. Along with theory, body stabilization exercises were taught, involving the voluntary participation of attendees. The format merged into a more participatory one, with groups sitting in circles, allowing for personal interaction.

In assessing the needs of the participants, trauma and depression workshops led us to address issues such as forgiveness and anger management. The staff reported particular group interest in addressing anger, leading to the development of a culturally sensitive anger measurement scale, which we plan to improve in order to measure future effectiveness of the program.

Particular remark is given to significant mental health improvement of the few female participants that attended 3 or more of our sessions. Two specifically who have recently left the prison continue to visit our office and show incredible appreciation for the program, encouraging us to continue the work. Their dedication indicates that higher frequency attendance in our group sessions is likely to provide effective psychological rehabilitation. Based on these case studies, we will aim to provide several group interventions to the same group of people, raising therefore, their probability of rehabilitation.

Challenges and Limitations

We have been challenged with a high level of expectation along with other NGOs and CBOs to help with the physical needs of the inmates, which has been highlighted many times during our operation at the prison. Although we understand that there is a crucial link between psychosocial, rehabilitation skills training, and physical needs of inmates in the process of rehabilitation, as a new privately funded organization, we currently lack the resources to offer such comprehensive program.

Other challenges relate to work space scheduling, unexpected rebellions which understandably impede our visit to the prison, and not being able to provide physical benefits (such as food during workshops for prison staff). As an organization specialized in psychological work, we believe that physical incentives are not beneficial in the process of psychological training and healing, because it distorts one’s reality and expectation. Only when awareness is gained about the need to change or improve, one can be motivated. The desire to become a valuable member in society, or as in prison staff cases, for psychological care, must come from within and not from external, temporary benefits.

Program Evaluation

Rehabilitation Variables used for Assessment:

Measured in the 1st, 6th, and 12th month of the program:

- Intrusion and avoidance symptoms. – Violence and aggression. – Acceptance of responsibility – Fear of negative evaluation.

- Social avoidance (which can impede reintegration into the community). - Better abilities to choose right from wrong.

Measuring the effectiveness of our work is a commitment we have to assure the delivery of proper intervention.

Every year we plan to submit clinical reports to the Ministry of Justice, including symptom measurement scales and frequency of participation through a culturally sensitive assessment model. Along with the clinical report, we have introduced a draft prison assessment form for direct feedback from inmates of the Monrovia Central Prison. The form, still under modification, inquire from beneficiaries about the S.C. prison program. Individuals may choose to reveal their identify or use their rights of confidentiality.

The topic “3 styles of parenting” from Goal Group Psychotherapy is gaining growing interest from parents and teachers in schools we visited.

We have written a letter to the DUJAR school to start work there as one of our selected schools, while we wait response there are more schools continually writing for Second Chance to request services at their institutions. Letters are on file for workshops to be scheduled.

We are working with Mrs. Leetor Williams, our Human Rights contact and supporter at United Nations Mission in Liberia, (UNMIL), to help arrange a visit to the correction facility in Zwedru City, Grand Gedeh County. We have set up a time-table for this visit in the last week in February 2011 and are making preparations to start in the upcoming months.