I met legendary Peace Builders Pastor Wuye and Imam Ashafa from Nigeria and the filmmaker Alan Channer, who has filmed documentaries about their work, a year ago in Canada. We all soon realized how well our different missions fit together. At a later point we reunited in Chad under the black Saharan sky, and continued our discussions how to work together. In November it came true in Kenya.
Imam Ashafa and Pastor Wuye were enemies, one being part of a muslim militia and the other of a christian one. Finally they realized the futility in being enemies and started working together building a platform to be able to assist groups of people to build peace.
Because of the documentary of Alan Channer, their work got known worldwide. Today they are invited all over the globe to assist people in reconciliation and peace building processes. Their method is well received because it has given positive results in many places.
Imam Ashafa and Pastor Wuye recognize the work of Peaceful Heart Network and the methodology of Trauma Tapping. During our joint workshop in Kenya they introduced the method to the participants who came from different ethnic groups:
“This Trauma Tapping is a new and universal method. The method crosses over all the borders of spiritual traditions, nationality, gender and race. And it is so simple. We need such an approach to help those who are traumatized and to be able to build long lasting peace.“
We held the TTT training as part of the reconciliation work, showed our videos from other workshops and exchanged experiences on symptoms of trauma and what makes people traumatized.
One of the participants, the tall Chief Zephaniah Lekachuma from the cattle herders in the north west of Kenya, was very keen to learn. I asked him to demonstrate his new knowledge to the others and have them to follow the procedure from him instead of me. He was more than willing.
I asked how he found the Tapping:
“I feel very relaxed”, he said somewhat surprised. “Specially when tapping on the chest and on the eyebrows. I will definitely use this in my area. So many people come to my office and tell they are traumatized for different reasons.”
Everybody applauded him and laughed in the relaxed atmosphere that mostly settles after a trauma tapping training.
After the workshop Pastor Wuye wrote:
“Thank you for what you offered to the people of Kenya. Many said you have given them a life long gift.”
http://www.anafricananswer.
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Here is a trailer to the film “An African Answer” about the work of Imam Ashafa and Pastor Wuye:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnfJnrtXliU
“For anyone who wants to do holistic peacemaking, you need to recognize and know how to handle trauma — because conflict is about causing injuries to people.”
These words come from the manual on Peace building that comes with the film “An African Answer”. These words that made me happy, because this resonates with the thinking of Peaceful Heart Network: “you need to address the trauma to be able to build long lasting peace!”
It is a dream coming true to work with these committed people and be able to move trauma work to being part of reconciliation.
The workshops were arranged in a collaboration between Initiatives of Change (www.iofc.org) and US Institute of Peace (www.usip.org)