| TigerNews
Dear SE Community,
As you are likely aware, Dr. Raja Selvam has been leading teams to India
to continue the important work of assisting Tsunami survivors. Please read his
latest report to his team members traveling to India in February 2007. We ask that
you hold these dedicated folks in your hearts and prayers for a safe and fulfilling
trip. His organization, Trauma Vidya (www.traumavidya.org), is a non-profit organization
incorporated in the U.S. after the tsunami by Raja Selvam to offer focused and long-term
trauma relief in a limited number of post-disaster settings such as Tamil Nadu through
education, training, treatment, and research.
Team Report
We will be working with the traumatic stress of tsunami survivors in fishing villages
as well as Sri Lankan Tamil refugees in refugee camps in Tamil Nadu during the February
2007 trip. We will be offering a four-day training in Karaikal. We will also be offering
a one-day follow-up training in Chennai for the eighty trainees we trained in September
2006 for six days. Trauma Vidya, in collaboration with NIMHANS (The National Institute
of Mental Health and Neuroscience) in Bangalore, India, the nodal agency for disaster mental
health in India, will start to shift the focus to treating and training Sri Lankar Tamil
refugees in Tamil Nadu starting with this trip. The follow-up research with control group
from this trip among Sri Lankan Tamil refugees will help Trauma Vidya to offer further
treatment and training to those traumatized in the prolonged civil war in Sri Lanka, in
India as well as Sri Lanka, either directly through future Trauma Vidya teams or indirectly
through those we train from OfERR (Organization for Eelam Refugees Rehabilitation) a great
NGO (non-government organization) with presence in India as well as Sri Lanka on our future
missions. The formal analysis of four-week and eight-month follow-up research data without
control group from the June/July 2005 India trip is nearing completion at California State
University, Northridge, in the U.S. and formal analysis of four-week and eight-month
follow-up research data with control group from the Febraury 2006 India trip is nearing
completion at NIMHANS, Bangalore, India. It is my hope that we will be able to attract
adequate funding for our future missions with all that we will have accomplished in less
than two years at the end of our February trip.
With regards,
Raja Selvam
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