By Kemo Cham
About a year after Sierra Leone’s general elections, Edward Kalokoh still harbored the pain of loss for his political party in the disputed presidential contest.
And all his anger was directed at the head of the National Electoral Commission. So angry was Edward that he was praying for an opportunity tounleash violence onMohamed N’Fa Allie Conteh for his role in “robing”the All Peoples Congress (APC) partyof the presidency.
“There are things that we cannever forget or forgive, until we die,”Edward said, in astonishment to majority of the people in the room.
It was a psychosocial session on forgiveness, organized by Social Workers Sierra Leone (SWSL)as part of celebrations of the Social Work Month in March 2019.Edward was among 25 participants selected from within Kosso Town in the Fourah Bay Community. They included traders, housewives, technicians, and unemployed youths. SWSL said the community was deliberately chosen for its propensity for violence which has left many residents with emotional scars that require specialized therapeutic support to heal, in a country with one of the lowest rates of access to social work services.
Fourah Bay, located in the east end of Freetown, is one of the highly overcrowded communities in the Sierra Leonean capital. It is also known for the predominance of violent youth gangs, who often become active during festivities like religious celebrations and sporting events.
Even in normal times,the slightest argumentbetween two neighborsis likely to end in communal violence.Deaths, theft and destruction of properties are common occurrences during such incidents.And because Fourah Bay is located within the heart the business district of the city, it makes every violent outburst economically costly.
This, said MichaelKoroma,a field worker with SWSL,is why participants were selected to represent all shades of people in the community.
“Most of themare jobless and they are likely to get involved in gang violence.But with this engagement, we hope the message will go around in the community and they will be able to minimize the problems,”said Michale, whocoordinated the psychosocial engagement conducted on March 16.
It was the first of three major programs lined upfor the whole month which is observed globally as Social Work Month by the International Federation of Social Workers. It provides opportunity for social workers toeducate the public about the invaluable contributions of the profession to society.
This year’s celebration marks the fourth time the Social Work Month was commemorated in Sierra Leone. And SWSL, a group of young volunteer social workers, was the first to celebrate the month in the country. Hassan Koroma, founder and National Coordinator of the organization, said the sessions were designed to help the beneficiaries take control of their feelings and respond appropriately to prevent themdeveloping emotional problems that could prove unproductive for the larger community.
This year’s theme for the month-long celebration was: ‘Promoting the importance of human relationships.’ Hassan said the theme speaks to the issues faced by Fourah Bay, among many communities in the country which aretorn by differences in socio-cultural and political realities.
A total of nine sessions were conduct, including one on building community coalition to tackle ‘wicked community problems,’ ‘forgiveness’ and ‘tug of peace’. ‘Tug of peace’ is a concept coined by SWSL from the popular term ‘tug of war’, which emphasizes the importance of togetherness in fighting a common problem.
Edward’s was just one of many sad stories from the participants at the Fourah Bay session. Some of the other stories included marital problems, poverty and joblessness. But all of them have one thing in common, their fear of insecurity.
The situation at Fourah Bay points to a perennial problem of interpersonal relationships, explained Hassan, noting that the goal of SWSL was to bring the various players together to build a coalition to address these problems.The emphasisis on building community coalition, he said.
“Having a society where behaviors are not in the good interest of the community, it means something is wrong in terms of the relationship, how people are interrelating among themselves,” he stated.
“In social work, what is more important is to provide a satisfying relationship at personal, group and community levels,” Hassanadded.
SWSL is an association of social workers who, mainly through volunteering, strive to improve the wellbeing of the people of Sierra Leone. They do so by providing psychosocial counseling to vulnerable people and communities, particularly deprived and neglected ones. Founded in 2012, the organization has partook in all national responses in distress situation, notably during the 2014-2016 deadly Ebola epidemic and the 2017 landslide in Freetown.
The organization relies on funding from mainly international donors, like the US-based charitable organization Lemondaid Fund, which funded the Fourah Bay engagement session.
After under five hours of nine sessions, Edward became a changed man. He told Politico that he had learnt a lot from the entire session to know that he would be doing himself harm by keeping such “hard feelings” inside him.
“The major thing I am carrying home with me is the importance of forgiveness, that one should never allow stress to take you astray. I take that into cognizance,” he said.
Another major beneficiary of the day’s session was Ibrahim Tarawallie, a young electronics technician. He came into the hall weighed downby weeks of stress inflicted on him by an unsavory relationship with hiswife. Tarawallie said his wife suddenly became abusive with him for reason unknown to him. He suspected it’s all out of jealousy. He eventually asked her out to “cool off” at her parent’s. She left just five days earlier.Tarawalliehad intended for her stay away for a month but he said his immediate action after the session was to get his wife back.
The session, he explained, taught him that one has to let it go sometimes and ease themselves for a healthy state of mind.
“I am so happy and I am overwhelmed by this program which has thought me how to deal with myself and others. I believe with this, I have known that to forgive is the best,” he vowed.
“I have eased up more than I was before coming in here,” he added.
Tarawallie even offered to share his experience with his club members at the Bombay Attaya Base Organisation when they met the following weekend.
© 2019 Politico Online
