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Like many of us I was feeling powerless watching the invasion, so I decided to do what I could. My mother and father-in-law have become refugees, and many friends in Ukraine have experienced shelling. Rather than despair, I have chosen action.
We are travelling on March 9 – so please help NOW. You can also help by sharing the link to this fundraiser with your friends – thank you so much.
I’m highly experienced in resilience and trauma training with 15 years under my belt in many areas of conflict such as Afghanistan, Israel and Sierra Leone (and have worked in Ukraine where I met my wife many times). I have trained major NGOs before, like Save the Children, Warchild and Oxfam, and can likely do this stuff quicker, better and cheaper than any major NGO now. Excuse me if that sounds arrogant, and with local help and your donations, this project will make a huge difference.
I’m putting my own money and a lot of work into getting there, but I will need funds for a training venue, local trainers, materials and to employ local refugee psychologists ongoing.
Funding Targets
With $3000 Mark Walsh and key Polish and Ukranian helpers will get to Lviv, Ukraine
With $40’000 they will get humanitarian medical supplies to Lviv and train twenty trauma resilience trainers.
With $200’000 we will be able to also pay twenty freshly trained trainers for 6 months.
The Goals
- We are training Ukrainian psychological resilience and trauma educators in Lviv, Ukraine.
- We will bring medical supplies and necessities to Ukraine (medication, sanitary goods).
Ukraine needs many things right now, and the tools to stay sane under extreme pressure are one of them. We will be working with local psychologists to provide an intensive pragmatic teachers course for people to pass on:
- Trauma emergency aid
- Practical psychological resilience tools
- Trauma education
These skills do not make everything in a war “fine”, of course, but do reduce suffering and promote:
- Psychological health under extreme conditions
- Lasting Resilience
- Clear decision making
- Creative thinking under pressure
- Compassionate action and, when appropriate dialogue
Assisted by a Polish volunteer, Piotr, we will also be delivering practical supplies (as requested by locals) to refugees in Lviv. These will be the most useful medical and humanitarian supplies that we can source.
Outcome
By April, with your help, we will have trained 20 local trainers to teach many thousands of people the basics of resilience and trauma.
Will it give ongoing benefit?
With sufficient funding we can also pay for trainees to spread this vital knowledge as a full-time job for at least a year. They will be more effective than foreign aid workers in this capacity, and help many Ukranians suffer less.
Are you working with locals?
Yes. The training team includes four local therapists/psychologists who have welcomed the training as they are short-staffed. We are also supported by international Ukrainian volunteers, local advisors and interpreters.