Description of programs: Ke Ansam
Ke Ansam (“Hearts Together”): is TRI’s Emergency Response Program for Haiti. Set into motion on January 13, 2010, Ke Ansam supports these three longstanding, on-the-ground, local organizations in Haiti:
- IDEO (Institut de Development Personnel et Organisatinnel) is founded and directed by Port au Prince’ most respected and well-known psychologists, and has expertise in developing community-based mental health and psychosocial programming. In partnership with URAMEL (see below), and under the leadership of widely recognized Haitian trauma psychologist Dr. Roseline Benjamin, they have established Haiti’s first ever psycho trauma center (“Sant Siko Twauma”) to provide a full range of mental health services—from community based psych-social to professional clinical programs — throughout Haiti.
- URAMEL is Haiti’s only local NGO to provide training to mental health, medical and health care professionals who treat Haiti’s many victims of disaster, violence and torture. Staff includes medical, forensic and social work professionals who assist, train and support clinics and hospitals all over Haiti. They work closely with Haiti’s finest medical school, and are partnering with IDEO to provide comprehensive health care and mental health services throughout Haiti.
- IDEO and URAMEL, jointly, have received seed funding to launch Haiti’s first comprehensive trauma response center. URAMEL will direct the medical program and Dr. Benjamin will direct the mental health component, called The Psycho Trauma Center. Additional funding is essential so that this program can develop a training component and set up community-based, satellite programs throughout Haiti. TRI is assisting in the development and delivery of clinical and training services as well as overall program design and development for the community-based mental health component.
Hands on Haiti (“Mete Men pou Ayiti”): is a project of Ke Ansam, co-directed by Amber Gray and Karen Brown, LMHC/LMT. On our “maiden voyage” in March 2010, our team of four CranioSacral Therapy (CST) practitioners provided between 300-400 sessions to the Haitian people at TRI’s partnership sites. Our hope was to aid in the relief of Post-Traumatic Stress symptoms and to help people reconnect to themselves in the wake of the unprecedented devastation caused by the January 12 earthquake. Because massage therapy and other bodywork modalities have been a very successful addition to disaster relief efforts, and based on the large number of somatic complaints reported to TRI’s director in counseling sessions, TRI is integrating this hands-on project to provide direct and immediate relief.
Click to view Bucknell Campus Residency Flyer.
Click to view TRI’s Update on our work in Haiti (May 2012).
Click to view TRI’s 2012 Update and Fundraising Letter (and thank you for your support!)
Click to view TRI’s 2012 Summary Report
A thank you to those who have helped in Haiti. Trauma Resources International was established to provide direct clinical services, support programs, training and education, and program development assistance. Our services can be provided to non-profits in low resource and insecure settings; veterans and service members returning to the US and those still serving; refugees, asylum seekers, and civilian survivors of war and human rights abuses such as torture, at no cost to the recipients.
A common consequence of our work are requests from local health and mental health programs, community-based programs, non-profit survivors and human rights organizations, and programs serving refugees, survivors of torture and political violence, and US service members and veterans, for training, capacity building, direct services, and consultation on program development and implementation. Trauma Resources International enables these services, trainings and program support to be accessible and available to these individuals, organizations, and communities.