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Mrs. Nandroba is a widow at forty nine. Her pained face depicts the horror she has endured: Her husband was hacked to death before her very eyes, and her 2 year old son stabbed to death with spears as she was holding him in her arms. Although she was terrified as they were about to shoot her seventeen year old son, she jumped and hugged him wishing to die with him. But they did not want to kill her, at least, not to kill her physically. They wanted to just destroy her mentally.
There are many stories like this in east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The violence and the brutality with which it is being committed have left thousands of people, especially children and women extremely traumatized. Women like Mrs.Nandroba and many others suffer from extreme psychosocial disorders and need psychosocial support.
While counselling is important in a post conflict situation such as this, it is also imperative that social economic rehabilitation is undertaken not as a complimentary activity but as part of a holistic and comprehensive response to complex psychosocial consequences of a conflict that simply refuses to go away.
Community based psychosocial counselors and social workers need to be trained and equipped with necessary skills to counter the ever increasing trauma. LWF/WS operations in the DRC has embarked on training of psychosocial counselors and social workers to support communities deal with psychosocial consequences of conflict
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