Forgetting one’s pain is impossible; instead, those who have suffered as a result of violence and conflict must learn to integrate what they have endured and remember it through new eyes.

This six-day workshop offers tools for engaging with and transforming personal and collective experiences of sorrow, hatred and revenge.

It guides participants on a path to healing and leads to an assumption of personal responsibility, which allows for the recomposition of the fractured self and an ability to rehumanize the dehumanized other, thus opening the door to dialogue.

At the end of the workshop, trainees have learned how to positively reframe their narrative of victimhood and initiate a journey of greater equanimity and forgiveness towards the self and the other.

They are now ready to move on to the next step: building personal capacity for reaching out to others.

This six-day workshop informs and engages participants in strengthening their ability to recognize their own capacities, resources, and risks, as they acquire skills for delivering social and moral support to victims of sexual and other forms of extreme violence.

It provides an overview of methods for intervening with victims of rights violations, with an emphasis on the importance of listening to testimonies of traumatic political experience, as a therapeutic instrument and as a means to preserve memory.

Participants learn how to contain emotions and pain as they explore concepts of trauma and mourning, complexities and ethical aspects of testimony, and the therapeutic value of catharsis.

They are also introduced to the range of ways that testimony can support public action, legal action, and the preservation of public memory.

By the end of the workshop, participants are ready to move on to the next step: learning to meet the other.

Dignity is typically disregarded as a key element in the origins of and solution to conflict, particularly when it comes to conflicts involving individuals and communities that have undergone extreme experiences of suffering, injustice and humiliation.

This two-day workshop offers tools for understanding the essential elements of dignity and recognizing how we violate and can instead honor our own dignity, the dignity of others and the dignity of purpose.

Through intensive role-playing, participants develop an emotional understanding of the centrality of human dignity in the building of positive and constructive human relations.

They leave the workshop with a clear understanding of how to employ the tenets of the “dignity” model in all they do and are prepared to move on to the next step: active listening for healing and advocacy.

Large-scale documentation of the suffering caused by violent conflict is an essential component of the work to seek redress and advocate for needed political and legal reforms and yet the “collection” of narratives of pain can easily re-traumatize those who share them and leave them with the feeling of having been robbed of their story.

The Dignity Healing Testimony method enables victims and survivors to express their full life stories, not just their experiences of trauma, through a compassionate process that facilitates personal healing, the restoration of dignity and the documentation of human rights violations.

This three-day workshop teaches participants the basic assumptions of Dignity Healing Testimony and offers an overview of the contexts, main experiences and findings that informed the creation of the approach.

Participants learn to conduct dignity healing testimony interviews through role playing and observation, leaving the workshop with the skills needed for the next steps: gathering legal testimony and supporting healing and human rights advocacy in their own communities.

This two-day training is conducted according to the ICC (international criminal court) model with reference to the protection of victims and witnesses and a particular focus on the protection of individuals against gender-based crimes.

The unique and sound system of protection as established by the ICC with respect to the participation and reparations rights of victims is a well-developed model that ensures the effective exercise of those rights in conflict and post-conflict situations.

Participants leave the workshop knowing how to conduct Dignity Healing Testimony interviews in accordance with the ICC guidelines, as a way of documenting human rights violations.

While lengthy life history interviews offer healing and the critical legal documentation of atrocities, efforts to promote local reconciliation and peace as well as galvanize international support benefit immensely from the use of community-based storytelling and arts approaches.

This five + one day workshop uses experiential methods to engage participants in identifying which aspects of the dignity healing testimonies they’ve documented can be developed as short-form works of art and how to position testionies and stories for healing and advocacy.

Participants are guided through the process of drawing on the contents of their longer testimonies to prepare shorter, concise narratives and develop these as short digital videos.

They are offered learning tools for:

1. how to lead community-based Story Circles, resulting in written narratives;
2. how to make high-quality audio and/or video recordings of these written narratives;
3. how to facilitate location photo/video shoots, to collect compelling visuals to pair with written narratives;
4. how to produce simple digital stories, blending audio recordings with photos/videos

Participants come away with a solid grasp of how to use simple technology tools (e.g. smart phones, audio recording devices) to carry out this process, practicing by working with narratives shared in the Dignity Healing Testimony sessions. Participants also leave with an ability to tell personal stories from their own lives and support others in doing so, with an understanding of the essential role that creative practice can play in building relationships and addressing conflict.

Participants will then watch the digital stories; identify key themes, messages, and opportunities for linking them to advocacy efforts; and outline a strategy for sharing the testimonies and stories:

1. in local community settings, to promote healing and trust and encourage involvement of others in the story gathering process ;
2. in meetings with key leaders / decision-makers, in order to link stories to policy goals;
3. with the general public (in community screenings and online), to raise awareness, mobilize involvement in support for Syrian women and detainees.

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