Psycho-social support to large numbers of traumatized people in post-conflict societies : an approach to community development in Guatemala
The main challenge for community development efforts in post-conflict societies with large numbers of traumatized people is to create hope and reconciliation through community healing and participatory democratic community development. The community development efforts should aim at creating a set of values and practices conducive to peaceful co-existence through non-violent conflict resolution, thereby reducing the alarming levels of violence in post-conflict societies.
Author: Anckermann, Sonia | Dominguez, Manuel | Soto, Norma | Kjaerulf, Finn | Berliner, Peter | Mikkelsen, Elizabeth Naima
RCT Author (No longer employed at RCT): Peter Berliner, Elizabeth Naima Mikkelsen
Source: Journal of community and applied social
psychology ; vol. 15, no. 2
This article describes a community development approach in
Guatemala to supporting people affected by organized
violence and torture. Through a description of the theoretical and
practical work carried out in post-conflict Guatemala through the
ODHAG-RCT programme, the article focuses on the relation between
the three main pillars of the community development approach;
healing, empowerment, and development. The community development
approach uses health as the entry strategy to its aim of social and
political transformation. Traditionally, health is not perceived as
being linked with social and political transformation, but rather
as the means to increase the health condition of community members.
However, this article will show how community social psychology can
be integrated in an understanding of political and economic
community development. Hence it is argued that the outcome of the
community development approach is measured through observations of
the group as well as the political and economic developments of the
community, and not only through a decrease in health related
symptoms