Nancy is a nine year old girl from Bait Lahia in Northern Gaza. She is from a very poor family like the majority of families in her area.
Nancy’s sad story began one day when she was playing around her home. At that moment, the Israeli war against Gaza in 2009 began.
Nancy was terrified due to the intensity of the fighting.
She started screaming trying to get back into her own home, but was not able to. She suffered serious war related trauma. After that, she became very fearful and a child with no seeming signs of a healthy childhood.
Children suffering from post traumatic stress of war
Although the war ended three years ago, Nancy and many other children continue to suffer the post traumatic stress of war.
Nancy still has the same fears and she is still not able to restore her normal psychological and emotional development. She suffers from irrational fear, anxiety, insecurity, rage, withdrawal, and other symptoms of moderate trauma.
To Nancy's parents, their daughter’s trauma was obvious. They saw her suffering from a lot of problems, but these outstanding issues were not solved by the doctors that they have visited.
Nancy's parents are not really educated enough concerning the psychological situation of their daughter and do not have enough awareness to identify that their daughter is suffering from a psychosocial problems rather than a physical problem.
No one was able to really discover the real problem of Nancy and Nancy stayed in a traumatized condition for three years, like a beautiful flower with no color.
The psychosocial support program
DCA in partnership with its local partner, YEC, in Gaza has started the implementation of a psychosocial support program since 2009 for the traumatized vulnerable children in Gaza.
This program continues to reach out to children just like Nancy. This program covers the northern area of the Gaza strip where most of the traumatized children from that war still live.
As a part of the program activities, Nancy joined the program through the coordination of YEC with the local community. The psychosocial program's staff noticed that Nancy was majorly traumatized and the effects of the trauma were shown clearly in her slow learning problems in the school, irrational fears, anxiety, insecurity, an inner rage, and withdrawal from her life, peers and family.
YEC’s staff began working with Nancy as soon as they learned of her case. The staff collected all the data about Nancy and discussed this information in their weekly staff meeting days and form a “beehive” team to start solving her problem. The social worker has visited the parents’ home to collect data and to make a treatment plan.
Nancy’s mother says that she was one of the best students in her class and was very clever with a wide smile. Her teachers called her "Nancy the flower", but her mother says with a sad expression on her face "My daughter is a flower, but without colors".
Who will restore Nancy's colors?
The staff started implementing a treatment plan for Nancy to restore her normal life. This plan includes individual counseling, de-briefing counseling, CBI sessions, free playing, fun activities, drawing, and remedial education teaching.
Within two months of hard work with the child, Nancy gradually has started restoring her smile, showed great progress in her school, and start playing with her friends after three years suffering from problems.
Her parents were very happy about this progress after losing the hope of solving their daughter’s problems, Nancy's mother says "Thanks to YEC for their efforts with my daughter, Thanks for the DCA people and all of those people joining with them to support Gaza’s traumatized children. My daughter now is a real beautiful flower with colors once again".
No treatment for many children
Nancy is one of hundreds of the undiscovered Gazan children that still suffer from psychosocial problems which result from the ongoing Israeli- Palestinian conflict. It is not known when this conflict will end.
For some children, the problems are getting worse because children go untreated and parents don’t have the tools to deal with psychosocial problems with children. DCA and YEC are working in the psychosocial sector to help change this course.
By Iyad Abu-safyah