In April and May 2015 two major earthquakes occurred in Nepal, leaving thousands of people homeless, injured or killed. In collaboration with the local NGOs Kopila Nepal and Expressive Arts Nepal creating links delivered eight workshops to teachers, counselling trainees and social work students in urban as well as rural areas. A major focus of the pilot project was to empower communities within the Gorkha district, which was an earthquake epicentre. The participants of our psychosocial training workshops engaged in collaborative learning, creative reflection and skills-sharing, which they can use in their diverse work places across a wide geographical area.
The project included an action research to assess the psychosocial needs of communities that were affected by trauma and displacement after the earthquakes. Outcomes were generated through verbal and written feedback, as well as through interviews from individual participants. Overall the workshops were described with words such as “useful”, “informative”, “relevant”, “insightful” and “enjoyable”.
