PSYCHOLOGY IN HUMANITARIAN ACTION AND ARMED CONFLICT – A case story from the field

Resumé

»Peace is a dream about having enough food

to eat and a dream about attending school«.

GIRL, 12 YEARS OLD, AND BOY, 13 YEARS OLD,

NORTHERN UGANDA, AFRICA.

From early 2004 to end 2006 Médecins sans Frontières (MSF) provided a protective night shelter for night commuting children in Northern Uganda. Originally the night shelter contained up to 4000 children and the children commuted every night from their villages to the shelter in fear of being abducted by the rebels for use as soldiers, sex slaves and porters. As the security situation improved and the number of night commuting children decreased during 2006 MSF conducted a qualitative research based screening of all 745 children remaining in the shelter in order to identify the psychosocial needs and level of vulnerability of the children. The screening was designed with advocacy and applied short term response in mind.

The medical and mental health work with children and the screening work in particular brought forward general observations and reflections about the challenges and constraints of the clinical psychologist’s work in a humanitarian action and conflict setting. These are reflected in a set of lessons learned, one of the main points being the need of an integrated mental health approach that communicates within a simplified »diagnostic« culture-sensitive system based on psychosocial interventions.