Hope amidst chaos...Resolve in the face of uncertainty...Faithful service despite system collapse…These descriptions are applicable to Petra's dedicated Afghan partners. At a time when the US and the Taliban are struggling to come to meaningful mutual terms in a wavering peace deal, our Afghan peacebuilding partners remain firm, steady, and committed in their service. We were delighted to be able to be with them again earlier in 2020.
Just before the world shut down
Petra trainer and Dari-speaker Charlotte Cline joined Bianca in Cairo, Egypt for a Rotary Peace Centers symposium before traveling together to Herat, the largest city in western Afghanistan, near the border with Iran.
The project took place just as COVID-19 was becoming a concern in Iran, making Herat particularly vulnerable due to the likelihood of thousands of Afghan refugees in Iran coming back to Afghanistan via that border (which is precisely what happened in the days following). We are thankful that the timing was early enough for us to complete the training just before Europe and the rest of the world began shutting down borders and canceling travel.
Herat, Afghanistan—5,000 years of history!
Joyful reunion
We had significant cohort overlap in this second February 2020 group from our first August 2019 cohort, with a couple of new additions, including the organization's Director of Human Resources (a key figure for staff resilience!). These Afghan leaders came to Herat from leading their respective projects in Kabul, Mazar-e-Sharif, and Herat. Such a joy to be with them again, reconnecting on a personal level while also building upon the content from our August 2019 training.
The identity of our partner org and its employees cannot be revealed for security purposes. But trust us—they're the Bee's Knees!
Bridging the language gap
Being able to deliver in the Dari language with Charlotte as part of this project took the quality of Petra's training to a whole new level. What a gift she is to our Afghan partners who can share heart-level concerns, leading to transformational discussions in their own language.
We worked very hard to offer fully translated workbooks, charts, models, and interpretation options throughout. It was also great to leave the cohort with Dari-translated excerpts of an incredibly powerful book called The Secrets of the Bulletproof Spirit. Highly recommended, and we know it will be valuable to these folks!
We worked very hard to offer fully translated workbooks, charts, models, and interpretation options throughout.
What does resilience look like in this context
Learning new concepts is one thing; putting them into practice is quite another. Phase I in August 2019 dealt with introducing the very new concepts of resilience, self-care, and emotional regulation, which was enough to digest for that time. Here in Phase II, however, we were able to leapfrog all the way to concretely defining what "resilience" looks like in their Afghan NGO context. Furthermore, these leaders and managers created a joint draft statement articulating a new organizational commitment to resilience practices. (Woo-hoo!)
They were such eager, willing, engaged participants in this important conversation. They were truly a joy to facilitate through this process of mainstreaming resilience into their work worlds.
“I conduct resilience and training work with all kinds of groups in different places, and felt that, in Herat, I had the chance to work with some of the most admirable professionals I’ve ever met.”
Each team identified very specific ways they will be practicing and integrating resilience concepts and practices with their staff.
Clear and Specific Next Steps
As country-wide managers, the cohort jointly identified the importance of creating a broad, organization-wide awareness and shared language around resilience and mental health. Additionally, each specific team (Kabul, Herat, Mazar) identified very office-specific ways they will be practicing and integrating resilience concepts and practices with their staff and curriculum. Each group then reported their next steps and received support for their goals.
Training plus Coaching and Psychosocial Support
Bianca spent multiple evenings in intensive personal sessions in private, discussing sensitive issues in culturally-appropriate ways that could not be discussed in the classroom. From our end, we assured them of our commitment post-training to follow up with online coaching and to support each team leader in the ways they indicated they needed it most. And while Bianca left to travel on to Pakistan, Charlotte was able to spend a full day back in Kabul, developing curriculum with the Kabul Peacebuilding team following the Herat training.
“Coaching individuals like these 1-on-1 outside of training is the most fulfilling work I feel I do. To coach and mentor Afghan peacebuilders on-site in Afghanistan...for me, it doesn’t get better than this.”
Testimonial of an Afghan Manager
'Fahim' manages a very large-scale project in Mazar-e-Sharif. He has served with this organization for 25 years.
“This is one of the best trainings I’ve ever undergone—and I’ve gone through A LOT of trainings over two decades!”
He told us, "This is one of the best trainings I've ever undergone--and I've gone through A LOT of trainings over two decades! The issues and concepts in this training--trauma, resilience, emotional regulation--affect each of us, and probably more in Afghanistan. Every Afghan alive has been traumatized by decades of war. This realization is fundamental in the work we do, yet has been sadly neglected within professional development. Learning how to become resilient people is so important, yet this is the first time resilience is being prioritized for us and the people we serve. I am so glad to see things moving in this direction.
“Furthermore—and perhaps most importantly—we can see that these trainers have truly grappled with these issues in their own lives. Many foreign technical experts come to Afghanistan to train, to help build capacity. They come, they dump information, and they think their job is done. But this training has been noticeably different. We can see that these trainers from Petra Peacebuilders have struggled and have wrestled with these issues. They have learned valuable lessons and they are here so that we can benefit from their own life experiences. This is the kind of training that really makes a difference in people's lives."
“This is the kind of training that really makes a difference in people’s lives.”