More than a decade of violence across the Northeast region of Nigeria has created a humanitarian and social disaster, leaving millions of people in precarious condition, and destroying the social fabric that maintained harmony at the community level. The violence has resulted in loss of lives and property, forcing people to leave their homes and lose access to their livelihoods and protection resources. Moreover, a disproportionate response by the security forces against civilians has aggravated protection concerns, while community militia groups established to combat Boko Haram have also turned against civilians and are adopting ruthless and violent tactics against them. Fear and mistrust have caused neighbors and family members to turn on each other; traditional conflict resolution mechanisms have failed, and the social fabric has been torn apart. Displaced communities are almost entirely reliant on humanitarian aid and government support, the scarcity of which has exacerbated existing underlying community religious and ethnic tensions, as well as creating rivalries between IDPs and host communities. This project will address immediate trauma needs in selected communities and sustainably increase community capacity to address trauma by training selected community members to implement these psychosocial support responses in their communities.

Safer World Foundation has an established pool of trauma healing responders within selected communities in the northeast and northwest regions of Nigeria and over many years of experience have acquired skills in Healing and Rebuilding our Communities (HROC) and Psychological First Aid (PFA) while supporting traumatized persons in Nigeria. This project will leverage on their experiences and skills as we already have a developed curriculum that will be contextualized to fit this current project.

Project Goal

To raise awareness on trauma and equip communities with functional community-driven psychosocial support systems that will provide basic psychological first aid services to vulnerable community member who experience trauma as a result of conflict and violence and create a referral pathway in Mubi North and Mubi South LGAs.

Project Objectives

• To raise awareness amongst community members of trauma.
• To provide basic psychosocial first aid services to vulnerable persons across targeted communities.