Lidra Remacka, Sustainability Frontiers, Canada, continues her series of path finding consultancies for the UNICEF Western and Central African Regional Office (WCARO) designed to embed psychosocial support (PSS) for children living in contexts of emergency and crisis into classroom practice.
Following consultancy work in the Central African Republic in March/April 2016 and in Mauritania in April/May 2016, the latest phase of the work takes Lidra to Mali and the Cameroon for an assignment focussing on identifying healing opportunities in the classroom as part of the Education in Emergencies response in the two countries. The consultancy will provide capacity building in the delivery of PSS training through presentations to Malian teacher college instructors. It will also involve facilitating a five-day PSS training program for Cameroonian Master Trainers to facilitate a cascade of capacity building as well as a five-day PSS teachers training program for teachers. This will be the first time that teachers working in North of Cameroon affected by the Nigeria crisis are going to be trained in PSS. This latest phase of the consultancy began in June 2015, and is intended to conclude in August 2016.
Infusing PSS into the curriculum has been successfully implemented and the methodology introduced to teachers in seven countries under the WCARO PSS initiative since June 2015.