Healthcare Workshop

On October 27th, 2008, the Mercy Ships Mental Health Care team travelled to Liberia’s northern county of Lofa to facilitate a five-day workshop in Voinjama City, one of the worst affected areas of the civil war.

Dr. Lyn Westman, Mercy Ships Mental Health Care Programme Administrator, led the workshop for 200 Liberians, which emphasized behavioural counselling and the model of caring for the whole person.

The participants ranged from church leaders to health care workers, teachers, and prison workers. Many participants walked for hours from their isolated jungle villages to attend. 

The workshop offered teaching on mental health and mental illness, marriage, female genital mutilation, trauma in children, and how children learn.

According to Dr. Westman, gathering the different professionals from around the area increases the opportunity for networking, developing partnerships, accountability and resource sharing.

“We are laying a foundation using the whole person model and the mental health providers can build from there,” Dr. Westman said. “We have planted a seed.”

Participants of the workshop felt the information would be very useful in their jobs and in their daily lives. One participant said it encouraged him to partner with others, and another said it would help him be a better parent. Many of the workers at the prison said it would be helpful in dealing with prisoners.

“I believe, using the [counselling] techniques, we have to show the prisoners a way out,” said Corrections Officer John Yanga, of Voinjama Central Prison. “I have been taught to make them aware that they have the problem, motivate them, and give them hope that they can change.”

The Mental Health Care programme emphasizes the importance of caring for the whole person, including physical, psychological, social, and spiritual aspects. This whole person model recognizes that if the individual has a problem in one of the four areas, every other dimension is affected.