An Attitude Shift

So I took a week off from writing due to the Notre Dame game. And then another for a retreat. Time to catch up.

I'm going to post this blog from last week, then post two more in the next few days.

These last two weeks have shown me the extremes of my work. Last week was emotionally tough; I saw more pain and hopelessness than I could cope with. I hit a point where I needed to reevaluate how I approach my work. My typical coping mechanism involved activities at home that would help me unwind at the end of the day. I'd listen to music or immerse myself in books to escape the sadness I was experiencing on a daily basis.

This method was failing me because it wouldn't prepare me for the next day. My coping mechanism when facing the trauma was hoping that I wouldn't get too stressed until I made it home.

I spoke about this problem with my roommates and my supervisor Mario. My roommates sought to reassure me about the good that we were able to do at the Kovler Center. It occurred to me that I failed to see past the sadness every day. I was too blinded by the sadness to see the good. However, Mario was able to articulate my needs better than anyone.

Mario has been working with torture victims for 35 years, and in his experience he found there's a difference between recovery and healing. We often use the words interchangeably but note that the word is re-cover. The "re" implies a return; in this case, a return to the way one was before.

Torture is so severe that recovery is impossible. It's impossible for those who endure it, those who see it, and those who work with it. You cannot just bury the sadness or "get over it." Trauma forever changes people and on one level that's a good thing. What would it mean to the survivors if I returned to "normalcy" at the end of this year. It insults there struggle to do so. I've been changed drastically, and that's a good thing. Now, I need to learn how what I've seen shapes who I am and who I choose to be. I'll likely spend months attempting to figure this all out. It's great that Amate gives us so much time to reflect on it all!

The Auditor Cometh

This week, I experienced my first government audit.

Yeah . . . exactly.

Approximately half of our funding comes from the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) which is a division of the Department of Health and Human Services (in case you were curious). In the mid 1990s, the United States was funding and training military groups in Latin America to fight communism. What was actually happened, however, was these groups used communism to oppress any union worker, Catholic, teacher, political figure, etc that spoke against the government. In effect, the United States had directly been funding torture in Latin America. As a result, the United States sets aside money every year for torture survivors.

Our funding is allocated by grants. Every three years, torture treatment centers apply for a grant from ORR and this grant accounts, again, for about 50% of our budget. The audit is the first for the center, and it was surprisingly productive. ORR is primarily concerned with accountability. They want to know that there money is being used as promised; in addition, they want to assess the success rate of the torture centers.

The first factor is completely understandable. I think government should be strict with money that is given out. All you cynics out there (like myself) will be surprised to know that the government representative did not miss a trick. She was a very smart woman and was very meticulous about every cent of government money that we spent. She was kind but harsh at times. She pointed out every problem she saw and lectured us for wasteful spending. The most shocking thing to me is the scale of money we are talking about. The grant being addressed is in the hundreds of thousands of dollars yet most of the government waste comes from lack of accountability in the billion dollars grants. While I think government accountability should be the norm, it surprised me that our meager grant (on the scales of things) was so meticulous picked apart.

The second aspect was on the "success" of our treatment plans. Torture treatments are very difficult because the idea of treating torture victims is only about a few decades old. In addition, cultural divides are often immense.

When our center opened its doors 23 years ago, we saw two groups of clients: Hispanics and Cambodians. Our initial staff was largely Hispanic so their treatment was fairly straightforward. However, the Cambodians were difficult to help because they did not care for the standard Western treatment: individual counseling. A lot of cultural problems arose--on one hand, Cambodians believe in reincarnation, and some felt that they deserved the torture because they were likely a torturer in their past lives. Furthermore, the staff discovered they could resolve their trauma only through group activity. The Kovler center used art and dance (called art therapy) and found great success. By symbolically representing trauma, it helped avoid the verbal difficulties of expressing it and empowered all the individuals of the group.

So back the audit...I brought up that story to illustrate the difficult of determining "success" in treatment plans. Success in medicine is often hard to quantify. We see this difficulty every day as Congress attempts to reform health care. They want to streamline the process using "proven methods" but how and who determines that? It's the same way with my center. I absolutely believe that some treatments are better than others and that poor treatment centers shouldn't be funded at the expense of a successful treatment center. But again, it's so difficult to determine success. They currently use a Harvard Trauma Questionnaire at Intake and Discharge in order to document improvement, but is that really the best way to do it? Is merely asking questions about anxiety the best way to provide accountability. Who knows? How do you quantify success for individuals that refuse counseling? Does art therapy fit into the Harvard Questionnaire?

All in all, the audit was successful because it made us much more accountable. The auditor pointed out weak areas in our system and provided a lot of helpful advice. I couldn't believe, however, how meticulous she was over our funding. I have a lot more respect for our government, but I wish they'd also focus their attention on larger sums of money that are allocated.

Finding Hope in the Face of Darkness

The single hardest thing about this year so far is an appreciation of the gravity of the problems that face our world.

When one works for social justice, I believe the fight must be two-fold. First, there must be acts of charity. When there is hunger, we must provide food; when there is homelessness, we must provide housing; when there is despair, we must provide hope. Social justice needs a reactionary role because there is are many needs in the world. This is the area that's most commonly thought of when one images non-profit work.

The problem with being reactionary is it's often difficult to know what is needed. My older sister Laura illustrated it well by describing charities that would build wells in fertile land. They intentions were good but ultimately it was a waste of money because they provided a service that wasn't needed. It's often difficult to know what the need is because there is normally a lack of familiarity but even if you know the situation there are always countless different opinions on what is needed?

The second aspect of social justice involves a proactive approach: it is essential to examine the inequalities in society that lead to these injustices. It is a simple fact that opportunities are not equally distributed in this world. It is not to say that those in the "first world" don't work hard, but it is fair to say that employment opportunities simply don't exist in much of the world. In these areas, it is not a question of how hard one works but a question of whether success is even possible.

In my line of work you begin to realize that torture happens because the system permits it. It is not easy to get away with torture; it requires powerful, desperate groups of people that can stifle any opposition through intimidation and violence. It goes without saying that powerful governments use torture to stifle opposition but even large corporations use it. Shell gasoline has been accused of human rights abuses in Nigeria and the United Fruit Company has been closely tied to countless human rights abuses throughout Latin America.

It is this second aspect that paralyzes me and leaves me feeling so helpless. I merely need to open any clients chart and learn their history by reading a few pages. One page asks the client to explain why they were persecuted. The clients simply need to check the box next to one of the following options: political minority, religious minority, cultural minority, labor disputes, etc. One of the charts I saw had each and every option checked. My sadness and paralysis emerges because ideally I don't believe we should just help those who are tortured; we need to fight to prevent torture from ever happening again. Ultimately, my job should never need to exist. However, when someone was tortured because of politics, religion, culture AND labor issues, is it possible to correct even one of those in our lifetime? Just watch the stories of political oppression in Iran and Burma. Even if you do abolish torture in one country there are over 100 nations that use torture. Even our own country after 9-11 established "black sites" to intimidate and humiliate terror suspects beyond the eyes of organizations such as Amnesty International and the Red Cross.

My hope persists due to the positive aspects of my job. It is clear to see that the Marjorie Kovler does great things for people every day. I had the honor of receiving a call for an incredibly positive and warm client from the IRS stating that he no longer owed back taxes (his identity was stolen by an illegal immigrant and owed the IRS thousands). To be able to receive that news and know that his financial future was much stronger was an honor and a blessing to the soul.

I also take comfort in the fact that, again, 97% of our clients obtain asylum. It isn't fair that it often takes years. It isn't fair that a client of ours was denied asylum this week but not deported and therefore will forever be undocumented and stuck in political limbo. You just have the remember the positive because paralysis helps no one.