Wednesday, October 13th

I just completed my third day of training at Samaritana.  What an incredible organization.  I'm exhausted and exhilarated at the same time.  It's such a calming and peaceful place, and they allowed me to stay in one of their guest rooms throughout the training so I wouldn't have to commute.  Other participants stayed in guest rooms, as well.  They use the opportunity to teach their clients "hotel management" type skills when people stay over.  I fell asleep one night to a client playing guitar while singing Christmas songs.  I loved it.

For the training, they gathered people from several NGO's around and outside of Manila to attend.  The first day covered victim sensitivity training and trafficking dynamics, while the last 2 days covered an intensive training on each of the 10 components of TF-CBT.  This training felt especially effective as the participants were more than willing to ask questions and discuss various issues that arose with one another.  They really consulted each other on struggles in practice and took advantage of the opportunity of being together in one place.  I appreciated these discussions, although I was quite surprised because in the past I have found when I have tried to initiate some discussion during trainings, it is very difficult since many Filipinos report they are nervous to speak in English, and felt somewhat intimidated since I was a foreigner.  I was very glad people would speak up because I get kind of tired of hearing myself talk all the time...and I'm sure they do too.  There was a good mixture of foreigners and Filipinos, so that the staff from our office could give some insight as to how our learnings might fit into Filipino culture.  The cultural discussions were very rich, and I could really tell the participants were learning a lot from one another.  The participants left feeling invigorated to incorporate some of the things they had learned, and while it was a ton of information, it was a very good starting place in the process of implementing TF-CBT into practice.  It was good to connect and network with other NGOs, and our social workers came back with several ideas of how to improve work with our clients.  Woo hoo!