ALIVE (Trauma Awareness and Care) is a programme designed to empower friends to care for friends. It seeks to prepare and enable those who are willing to walk with others on their journey. To give the assurance that no matter what, they are not alone even in the most lonely times.
Every victim is a potential healer. Every victim is also a potential victimiser. It is a universally acknowledge truth that hurt people hurt and hurt people heal. We are all victims, survivors, overcomers and healers at any given time. With this in mind, the ALIVE programme aims to sensitise participants to those in their sphere of influence and to help them to gain appropriate knowledge and skills required to care for those who suffer from traumatic and emotional wounding experiences.
The initial training is in three levels spread over sixty hours. It exposes participants to:
- The nature and impact of various types of trauma on individuals and communities
- Cycles of trauma
- The healing paradigm: Victim, Survivor, Overcomer, Healer
- Redeeming the past and learning to forgive
- Basic skills to engage with people suffering from domestic violence, sexual abuse, depression, trans-generational trauma, stress and burnout and various other forms of trauma and abuse that people experience every day.
ALIVE is a process, which includes:
- Being accountable to provide direct care to those in need
- Walking together through the painful past
- Sharing the pain of others that may or may not be fully healed
- Applying the power of forgiveness
- Preparing a future together by exploring together possibilities for growth and development
In practice, it means:
- Motivating, mobilising, training and supporting people to care for and support those who are disillusioned, depressed and traumatised by their situation in life irrespective of their religious or social background.
- Establish and maintain centres of care for those who suffer from physical, emotional, psychological and spiritual wounding experiences. Those who are trained will become part of an ever expanding team of caregivers in their sphere of influence, supervised and supported by Transform4Life.
- Identify and analyse the origins and dynamics of personal and communal abuse, violence and trauma with a view to developing preventive strategies.