 Welcome to today's event on Incorporating Religious Sensitivity in Trauma Healing for Displaced Persons. Today we will be exploring contributions of religion to psychosocial support and mental health for migrants and refugees. Good morning. My name is Paul Washa Cocker and I am the Interim Director of the Religion and Inclusive Society program at the United States Institute of Peace. The USIP was founded in 1984 by Congress as an independent national institute dedicated to the proposition that peace is possible, practical and essential for US and global security. We pursue this vision of a world without violent conflict by working on the ground with local partners. We provide people, organizations and governments with the tools, knowledge and training to manage conflict so it doesn't become violent and resolve it when it does. We are very pleased and proud to co-convene this event today on the very important topic of religion and psychosocial support, with the Strategic Religious Engagement Unit of the US Department of State's Office of International Religious Freedom. USIP's oldest diplomatic program focuses on the role of religion in peace and conflict, harnessing the contribution of religious actors, practices, ideas and institutions to promote inclusive societies and build sustainable peace. We do this through research and direct action like training and convening. Earlier this month marked World Mental Health Day. We recognize that in countries experiencing social upheaval and high levels of violence and polarization, mental health of migrants and displaced persons can be a serious challenge to post peace accord scenarios of peace building. Religious institutions, practices and beliefs have shown to play a very significant role in this phase. Not only are religious actors on the front lines of responding to the needs of migrants and refugees, but face sensitive mental health and psychosocial support can also offer innovative approaches towards connection and healing. Currently USIP is investigating this intersection further through research to foster more effective cross-disciplinary approaches to psychosocial support for those who've been displaced by violent conflict. In countries like Colombia and Venezuela where major migration and displacement events have taken place, religious and spiritual support has proven to foster positive interactions between migrants and host communities, address social trauma and context where individual treatment is not possible, and develop resilience while reinforcing local processes and the social fabric. This is a topic very near and dear to my heart because as an African American, I have observed the powerful role religion can have in helping waves of refugees deal with their trauma. And we are keenly interested in best practices that might help the current evacuation efforts from Afghanistan. We're privileged to be joined today by a distinguished panel of experts who are working on the forefront to develop innovative solutions to provide spiritual and psychosocial care for trauma survivors, including refugees and IDPs. We look forward to hearing from them about their respective efforts and best practices in this space. I'm now honored to welcome my colleague at the Department of State, Dan Nadel, the senior department official of the Office of International Religious Freedom to say a few words. Dan, thank you for joining us today. And once again, thanks to all of you in the audience for participating in this important conversation. Well, good morning, Pabasha, and thanks to all of you for convening this timely and important conversation to mark World Mental Health Day and for inviting me to participate on behalf of the Department of State. In the conversation today, we have a chance to turn our focus to a particularly vulnerable group when it comes to issues of mental health, refugees and migrants. According to UNHCR, approximately 82.4 million people around the world are displaced from their homes as a result of conflict, excuse me, or persecution. This number has doubled in the past decade. This rapidly growing population continues to experience high levels of depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder stemming from experiences of displacement. The impacts of the global pandemic over the past two years have only amplified the trauma for so many. A growing body of research suggests that psychological trauma, if untreated, can contribute to a multitude of long-term challenges for individuals, their families, and the broader communities trying to support them. As such, addressing the mental health needs of refugees and migrant populations is critically important. However, refugees and migrants also face unique and significant barriers to mental health treatment, counseling, and other forms of psychosocial assistance. As a feature of their displacement, individuals have been disconnected from pre-existing support networks, including the schools, community and religious institutions, and even family members who help sustain and enrich their past lives. They have often lost most or all of their material possessions, and some have been witnessed to physical violence or victims of violence themselves. Even where mental health services are available, refugees and migrants are often reticent to take advantage of these due to the costs of care or to the social stigma still attached to such support in many societies. Frequently traumatized individuals see their religious beliefs and practices as the primary avenue available for managing their mental well-being. But while religious people tend to expect religious leaders and institutions to be able to support their psychosocial needs, many religious institutions simply lack the training to effectively assist deeply traumatized people. Similarly, mental health professionals are not always trained or well-equipped to address the religious and spiritual needs of trauma survivors. So there's a pressing need to bridge the gap between religious actors, mental health professionals, and others from governments and civil society aiming to support displaced populations. Partnerships between mental health workers and faith leaders can aid in the healing process, including by helping mental health professionals incorporate faith-based treatment approaches and considering faith sensitivities and treatment, while at the same time arming religious actors with evidence-based treatment strategies developed by mental health experts. Research in recent years has found that in times of crisis, religion, spirituality, and faith, when integrated holistically into mental health services and help facilitate the individual grieving and adaptation process, promote a positive worldview, offer a sense of meaning and purpose, and build foundations of resilience. I want to commend USIP for playing a leading role in this effort by engaging stakeholders and developing best practices for linking religious and mental health care providers. These efforts, including mapping psychosocial supports resources in Colombia and Venezuela, are a model that I hope can be expanded to other parts of the world. The Biden-Harris administration is committed to supporting culturally appropriate and accessible mental health care for all. Refugees and migrants come from a vast range of cultural and religious backgrounds and contexts. We must be flexible and nimble in reaching victims of trauma to help survivors integrate into new and unfamiliar societies, not only to survive, but ultimately to thrive. To the faith leaders and mental health experts joining this conversation today, we see you as vital partners in this effort. We will continue to rely on your insights and experience working with conflict-affected communities to shape a coordinated and effective mental health response. Thank you very much, and I look forward to this conversation. Thank you, Dan, and thank you, Paulusia. Welcome, everyone, and thank you for joining us today for discussion on faith-sensitive mental health and psychosocial support for migrants and refugees. My name is Neda Ansari, and I am a policy advisor at the Department of State's Office of International Religious Freedom. I will be co-moderating this session with Andres Martinez, my colleague, who is a program manager for religion-inclusive societies at USIP. But before we start our panel, I have the great pleasure of introducing Alistair Ager to share a broad overview of incorporating religious sensitivity in the framing of mental health and psychosocial support interventions. Alistair has worked in the field of global health and development for over 30 years after originally training in psychology. During this time, he has worked as a consultant and researcher across Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and North America with numerous agencies, including UNICEF, UNHCR, World Health Organization, Oxfam, Save the Children, World Vision, Lutheran World Federation, and Islamic Relief Worldwide. He served as Deputy Chief Scientific Advisor to the UK's Department of International Development from 2017 to 2020, and was appointed a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2019. He is the author of over 100 scholarly publications, including the book Faith, Secularism, and Humanitarian Engagement. Alistair, over to you. Thanks so much, Nida, for that introduction, and it's a great pleasure to kick off discussions on this important topic. The theme of religious sensitivity, trauma healing, displaced persons has been a focus of much of my work over the last 15 years from an occasion in Sudan, where in addressing the needs of displaced persons who certainly had cause and experience a significant trauma, I felt I was an actor that displayed significant religious insensitivity, recognizing that working for a UN organization, doing an important needs assessment for children, although I'd consulted with the religious leaders, I wasn't really prepared for the discussion and the importance of studying the Quran and the well-being of their children. I was ticking a box of consulting with a religious group, but I wasn't genuinely listening, and this was partly a result of my own inadequacies, my own being ill-equipped or ill-prepared. But it was also truth is 15 years ago that within the organization's NGOs I was working with, there was no space at that time to freely discuss the role of religion in the lives of those beneficiaries, and the complexities of it led us to be shy and to draw away from engaging religion. I'm so pleased that 15 years on, very much echoing the sentiments in the video and the introductory marks, we're in a much more positive place in terms of engaging seriously with the religious experience, and I want to just share two or three thoughts that have shaped my experience over the last decade or so that I think have been really important. That experience in Darfur sent me into some academic study about how was it that we were so reluctant to engage in religious discussion, noting that figure of 85 plus percent of people with a religious affiliation. Why was it that this was seen largely through a Western frame as a privatized area of experience, and something that we knew people had religious beliefs, but we would rather they kept it to themselves outside of the public sphere. And by discouraging it from being the public sphere, it was marginalized to the edge of discussions about development and support. It wasn't the main thing, we were signaling this was not something we were comfortable to discuss. And if we did discuss religion, we would tend to instrumentalize it. We would want to use faith groups to get our message across or to sensitize some population to some other message and not take it in its own concerns. So with that foundation of an awareness of how our thinking, often our secular institutions have come to deal with religion, have tried to be quite pragmatic to understand what have been the barriers to more fruitful engagement with faith and religion, which we might indeed be celebrating for the discussion today. I was involved in a paper about five years ago looking at the case for and the case and the reasons for not engaging with the region, particularly in terms of psychosocial support and mental health care. So reasons for I've already been significantly hinted at this clearly evidence that religion is an active and effective source of coping in many, many contexts. There's also evidence that respect for religion and acknowledgement of religion is powerful within many legal statutes, whether it's the universal declaration of human rights with convention of the rights of the child. These give a prominent place to an understanding of the role of faith. We also know from evidence that local faith actors often have a comparative advantage compared to external agencies in interventions and support. And if we want to be sensitive to trends in development thinking, we also know this is becoming an area that's much more coherent with the development of the localization agenda and more generally partnerships for faith. UNHCR classically opening its doors to a dialogue on faith and protection under the now Secretary General of the UN. And also the partnership of religion development the German government linking with many bilateral agencies including the US in terms of forming a partnership to think through issues of religious and development. So that's all on pushing us towards engagement in this field but we have to acknowledge I think that there is still a reluctance or an uncertainty and we identified three factors that seem to be recurrent. Although I have said and I believe that faith can be an active and effective source of coping many of us will know of instances where religious belief or practice has been used as a form of maladaptive coping whether that's in terms of a fermenter of conflict, or in terms of being an agency we may all know of uses of religion, which are not so positive and we need to consider how we respond to those practices. We also understand that engaging with the religion involves thinking for very carefully what we mean by impartiality to which a secular organization may be presumed to be impartial and have no particular allegiances, whereas a religious organization or local religious actors, the presumption may be inevitably of the partiality of their actions towards some groups and supporting some rather than others. So I encourage us to think through rather more carefully what we really mean by impartiality in terms of commitment both in terms of secular actors and government agencies, as well as local faith groups. But for third and final reason, which we found where many actors who although they were persuaded of wanting to get engaged more seriously in faith ways of thinking that held back was about a lack of documentation of effective practices of actually the tools for doing this there may be the urge to do that the encouragement to do that, but in reality in a complex multi faith multicultural environment, or in one where there are particular sensitivities about religion, how does one competently deal with that. So I was really privileged to be one of a number of people helping develop the guidelines for faith sensitive programming, particularly related to mhpss. And I just wanted to close my introductory comments with three comments around the forging of those guidelines. I'm very proud that they began life as the faith based guidelines and they ended life as the faith sensitive guidelines. We're not really interested in where the guidance comes from and the faith commitments of those that are providing the agenda is about being sensitive to the faith needs of individuals. It's sensitivity to the experience of people with development needs people at the margins. It's about provision. It's about the need for support. So that's the framing of the guidelines and then there's three you come to those guidelines there's three words or phrases that you will come across recurrently and I, I'd like you to think of in rest of the discussion of looking out for these terms and these ideas. There's frequent reference to the IAC the Interagency Standing Committee, and that was important because this is not a rival set of guidelines this is not a religious way of doing things as a rival to secular ways of doing things. It's acknowledging that the IAC guidelines were developed to support psychosocial intervention particularly in humanitarian context but widely used in development context, and they themselves pointed to the engagement religious actors and religious agendas. And so the guidelines are supportive of that they're not competitive with that they're enabling us to do something with sensitivity, particularly with populations for whom religious affiliation and sentiment is important. So the framing of this is not as a rival agenda or a combative agenda, but one that's coherent and supportive of other initiatives, but particularly supporting engagement with local faith groups. That's the first point. The second point is if you look through those guidelines, I'm very proud that the words that appear frequently are words like map, identify, assess. It's about listening, it's about finding out what's there already rather than jumping in and providing and those guidelines are a huge amount about finding what resources, what agendas, what interests, what capabilities are already in the field to local faith actors and others. And the third and final point the other language that's used in terms of action is words like build upon, share and involve. And it's fully about partnership and understanding the contribution that secular non faith and faith actors can make together and contributions in this area. So I commend to you looking at those guidelines and building on them, but I wanted to signal that they're really a culmination of a decade or more of thinking in this area which gives that sense of optimism that the video shared at the beginning that we've understood some of the barriers to more effective engagement and we're beginning to identify tools and approaches that support it. Thanks very much. Thank you so much Alistair. Thank you for providing that framing and sharing those really critical guidelines, much appreciated. Now it's over to our panel. We will now get started on the discussion. We are very excited to have the following experts join in on a discussion on faith sensitive mental health and psychosocial support for migrants and refugees. I would like to introduce first off, Elena Fidian Cosmie, who is a professor of migration and refugee studies at University College London, and director of the university's refuge in a moving world initiative. She is currently the principal investigator of refugee host research project, examining local community responses to displacement from Syria and Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey. From 2017 to 2020. She was a joint PI of the project entitled religion and social justice for refugees insights from Cameroon, Greece, Jordan, Lebanon, Malaysia and Mexico. Dr Elena has written several publications on the on the intersections of religion and migration. Our second panelist is Cristal Palacio, a Venezuelan clinical psychologist, peace builder and social entrepreneur. She is the founder and director of SICO diaspora, a network of Venezuelan mental health professionals working outside of Venezuela. She is also pursuing a PhD at the transitional justice Institute, where her research explores the psychosocial dimensions of social change and conflict in Venezuela through its emerging diaspora. Our third speaker will be Camilo Ramirez, who is the Columbia country director of the Hebrew immigrant aid society, also known as highest. Camilo oversees highest Columbia's efforts on the prevention and response to gender based violence, community based mental health and economic inclusion for refugees and forcibly displaced persons. Camilo has 14 years of experience contributing to the growth and success of organizations, such as the Norwegian refugee council and save the children on topics related to refugee and displacement crisis in Columbia, Ecuador, Venezuela, the northern triangle, Myanmar, Nigeria and Iraq. Finally, our last speaker, Wilson Lopez is unfortunately unable to join us today as he is actually in the field conducting research on this very topic. So we need him there, but he will be presenting remarks via a pre reported video at the start of the panel discussion. Wilson Lopez is a Colombian researcher in the fields of psychology and peace building, whose recent work has focused on armed conflict, forgiveness, reconciliation and peace building challenges. I'll stop there and we can play the video and then dive into our panel discussion. Thank you. Wilson Lopez, thank you very much for joining us today in this important event. I'm going to start with the first question. How do you define the role of mental health and trauma management in the context of peace building? First of all, thank you very much for the invitation to this space. I think that your question is very relevant because unfortunately we, the countries in conflict, sometimes prioritize political events, political costs that have long-term conflicts. I prioritize paying attention to the economic implications of these conflicts, but it is evident that conflicts are prolonged not only generate physical destruction of infrastructure and many other forms, but what is far more complicated and complex is that they result in psychological injury. And this is that much more complicated because it's difficult to directly observe this kind of injury and harm. Second, they grow over time. So a smaller or lesser problem at first then gradually becomes a major problem. And then unfortunately we start seeing the indicators such as an increase in suicide in certain populations or an increase in family violence or domestic violence. Many people believe in mental health that this perhaps is exclusively what happens and experts do clearly understand that mental health is much more than anxiety and depression. So all of these elements have been researched thoroughly in the Colombian case. I think it has actually been a research laboratory when it comes to social events. And these systematically demonstrate that domestic violence, suicide, violence between communities, these become a frequent recurring event and that is where we're talking about mental health. So it's not only the impact of the trauma resulting from being subject to a violent context on a permanent basis. This generates fear and it makes sense that one feels fear. It also gives rise to uncertainty and this permanent uncertainty results in great anxiety and anxiety in turn. That means that society starts consuming alcohol and drugs to overcome that anxiety and that is the kind of thing we see in the reports published by the WHO and reports published by countries showing how this kind of problem has mushroomed in the life of individuals. Now, mental health is not only an issue of pathological problems, but it also has to do with psychological well-being with the quality of life. And we can sometimes even see that communities can develop greater solidarity. They create more group identity and this community identity generates things that we are already seeing in a study that we have worked on that is in pre-publication at frontiers. So the group identity amongst migrants and health also, health having to do with well-being, of course. And what we find was that, yes, indeed, when people truly feel they belong to a group, then this is encouraging because you'll have better well-being indicators. And I'm mentioning this because we have to see the positive as well as the negative and perhaps there has been more work and research looking into the negative consequences on mental health in the conflict, in extended conflict context. And your question is very interesting because, on the other hand, when you look into topics that affect the life of an entire society suffering from the conflict, if you intersect it with peace, then you start thinking if we already know and most studies carried out by my team and others, we've worked with Professor Henry Moulit de France about forgiveness, about reconciliation in different groups. We find that that process of forgiveness is a process that perhaps is increasing the possibility of reconciliation, but it is severely impacted. We have very low predisposition to forgive as a consequence. It might be easier to feel desire of revenge or perhaps violence will appear. And that is where your question is so meaningful. These psychological traumas that don't cure these biopsychosocial impacts that cannot heal. When trying to heal them and when some are healing, then one finds that actually the contrary happens. They continue growing and there's a direct link between biopsychosocial health or mental health with issues having to do with peace, not only as a consequence of the conflict, but also to be able to talk of peace going forward. Going back to biopsychosocial, what do you mean exactly when you refer to biopsychosocial? What does that mean? Well, it's a difficult struggle to separate physical health from mental health. I think that in evolution of the discipline and of medicine, the medical profession was broken down into fragments of expert and liver and expert in skin diseases. There were no problems, but when you have a problem you're sent from one specialist to another, as if a person was a whole grouping of fractured items, but we are not fractured as human beings. We are units, biological units, psychological units, and we are in a social context. What does this mean? Well, the variables as group identity, and that's a social identity that social psychologist Henry Tachville has worked on in the 70s, conducting experiments, and he found that it is essential that we feel we belong to a group. And when that group welcomes us, provides protection, resources, then we feel satisfied. And that has a direct impact on how I feel. It has an impact on my ideas and my emotions. In other words, the way how I think about the world and how I feel the world. This means that I cannot separate the social events from emotional and cognitive events, as when I referred to the social events. In addition, this has a biological basis both in the brain and the body. So for instance, if you can't sleep well because you're feeling anxiety due to a loss or uncertainty, perhaps you've lost your job. And out of that, you don't have a support network that can help you. Then there is a probability, a very high probability of it affecting your biological health. And that's why we find such a close link between. So to talk about biopsychosocial isn't necessary in our language, researchers, those who develop public policy, we must truly try and think that we are a unit. Thanks everyone. And good morning. My name is Andrés Martinez and I am program manager at USIP. After hearing from Wilson Lopez, I would like to welcome Elena Fidian. Elena, thank you for joining us today. Thank you very much for inviting me. Thank you. Thank you very much. So the first question we have for you is the following. Can you highlight some of the many positive roles that faith-based organizations and local faith communities play in displacement affected contexts? Thank you so much. Absolutely. Around the world, individuals, groups and organizations who are both implicitly and explicitly guided by faith play a very important and positive role in many ways. So one example, they often support refugees access to diverse forms of assistance and protection. In my research in North Lebanon, for example, diverse local level rituals have been organized for but also by and with different groups of refugees. For example, local faith communities have for many years collected donations to prepare and distribute Iftar food baskets, with which particularly vulnerable families can break their fast during the Holy Month of Ramadan. This is simultaneously about providing food, but it's also enabling people to follow and fulfill key rituals that make and keep meaning and also bring hope. Another example is faith-based organizations and local faith communities who lobby in favor of refugee rights on local, national and international levels. And they also challenge xenophobia and discrimination against different groups of refugees on the basis of real or ascribed religious identity. Another brief example, research has documented how Lassid bin Dados, the 72 migrant and refugee shelter founded by the Franciscan Order in Mexico, has developed means to promote respect and support for diversity and inclusion across age, gender, sexual orientation and religious denominations. But also because of local host community resistance to support migrants and refugees, including because of fear that they would be prosecuted by authorities for supporting migrants and refugees. Lassid bin Dados established the School of Human Rights, which is a means of drawing upon their already established religious based networks to organize host communities and to equip them with knowledge and with skills to offer basic support for migrants and refugees. So through this network, Lassid bin Dados educates host communities on human and legal rights frameworks and draws on religious principles to teach and inspire school participants. In addition to supporting host communities in the provision of basic humanitarian aid, the School therefore enhances the resilience of local host communities through information sharing and legal training, including guidance on how to engage with local authorities and how to uphold their rights as citizens. But if I may also add that it isn't just about what faith communities do, but also how they do it, including through particular approaches. So local faith communities positions as informal responders enables forms of dignity, including through practices of accompaniment, spiritual sanctuary and support in ways that can feel less bureaucratic and less contractual than other forms of responses, and which can in turn help to build more humane, more dignifying forms of support. And furthermore, the thick social solidarities that underpin local faith community responses can offer a route to doing things with people rather than to them. Again, as pathways to dialogue to trust and to enduring solutions. Thank you very much. And I think that really connects well with our next question, considering International Mental Health Day and how it puts emphasis this year on the new ways of providing mental health care to migrant populations. With that in mind, why do you think it's important to reconceptualize the basic needs approach in humanitarian situations. Thank you. Well, basic needs are often intimately related to religious identity and belief systems of refugees and local conceptualizations of basic needs often transcend and even challenge secular organizations perceptions. So for example, UNFPA noted that many Muslim IDP women affected in the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami held that headscarves were essential to maintain their dignity and were a prerequisite to be able to access other services in public space. In essence, even if aid packages were being delivered to their community, women here veiled Muslim women would be unable to access aid and dignity and here, therefore the hijab was a basic needs item. Another example, which complements the support for local level rituals that I shared earlier regarding food baskets, shifts are focused away from celebrating key rituals pertaining to life to also think about basic needs and dignity in relation to death. Being able to bury a loved one with dignity can be as if not more important than what the international community often assumes to be the immediate emergency needs for food and shelter. And yet international organizations and agencies have often been reluctant or have even resisted displaced people using tarpaulin, which has been officially designated to be used for living spaces to instead be used for mosques or for temple spaces or even to bury loved ones instead. And in the refugee host project we've been focusing on the importance of dignity and death and dying and of the right to mourn and to be supported in mourning. How do we support people's right to grieve and to mourn as part of that broader framework of dignity in life and in death and the right to be buried as a right to be fought for to ensure that that well being is maintained. Thank you very much Elena, especially on those concrete ways in which religion faith and spirituality plays a role in providing more effective psychological support services to migrants. But before we continue with our next speaker, Crystal Palacios, we would like to ask the audience to please ask and share your questions via the website and we will do our best to include those at the end and please make sure to mention if you would like to ask that question to a specific expert within the panel. Sorry, audience can also ask their questions in Spanish, Spanish or English so you have an option. Over. Thank you. Now I would like to welcome Crystal Palacios. Crystal, buenos dias. Buenos dias. Gracias. So how can mental health professionals and psychosocial service workers leverage the positive impact of faith and spirituality to scale up the quality and access to mental health and psychosocial support. Absolutely thank you Andres for such a brilliant question and the opportunity to talk about this topic. So I'm going to talk from my capacity as director of Seattle the Aspera and the work that we've done, providing mental health and psychosocial support to Venezuelan migrants and refugees online and also in person through 2017 until now. So one of the goals of mental health and psychosocial support. Good mental health and psychosocial support is to support the strengths of the individuals, the families and the communities. The strengths of the people that we work with and who may be navigating extreme conditions or difficult situations that may have become chronic. Such as the case of Venezuelan displaced persons or Venezuelan refugees or Colombian IDPs as well. So the support in those strengths just exactly as Alastair was mentioning at the beginning of the webinar today is conducting an inventory of the individual and community resources in the form of internal resources. So the people's individual resources such as resilience, traditions, practices that can support them through these difficult times. These are what we call psychosocial practices. This can be food, so cultural foods that they enjoy eating and make them feel at home. It can be also structures and ways of building and ways of living together in a space and of course in this faith and spirituality play a key role. So a good mental health practitioner or a good mental health and psychosocial support practitioner, which is different from a mental health professional in a way, must be able to identify the religious practices such as prayer, attending Mass or going to the temple, Confession and I'm speaking from a Catholic point of views in the Venezuelan populations is 71% Catholic, but of course other forms of religious practices that provide a belief in suffering. And of course, but also a sense of meaning to their lives and of structure to their day to day lives that is so important to not only relieving suffering in terms of depression anxiety but as Camilo or his first speaker of sorry Wilson was mentioned at the beginning and providing well being for people. And it provides to them a sense of normalcy a certain could be reading a sense of sales of normalcy and agency in their own situation. At the same time, mental health and psychosocial practitioners in the field should be able to form alliances with religious actors in the community. Next, we can assess the truth is alliances we can assess how the services that we provide complement each other, assess the limitations of each each other services and identify again, same as the face sensitive guidelines that Alastair was mentioning identifying which areas of our services overlap in order to scale up the quality of the services and access to well being which is at the end, the main goal of mental health and psychosocial support. So this is the approach that we promote inside in sickle the Aspera, and it comes from from sort of a training in crisis intervention that is very traditional within the psychological schools of training, but also within a training of specific mental health and psychosocial support. And it's important to highlight the fact that face sensitive mental health and psychosocial support is trauma sensitive itself, because it aims at retaining the values that give sense to a person's day to day life and meaning in their existence in this and is also as well then culturally competent. I think those are two of the ways that we can leverage religious and actors and religious traditions in working with mental health and psychosocial support. Thank you. So the next question. I'm not going to pretend that it's an easy question, but one that is particularly valuable to especially the practitioners in our audience is the following in your work as a clinical psychologist. You can also incorporate or reconcile between atheistic or spiritual strategy, and the modern scientific psychosocial psychological model, particularly when working with Venezuelan migrants which as we know, many of them might have you know a religious perspective in their lives. I mentioned before I was trying to emphasize the idea that where we're talking about this we're talking about good mental health and psychosocial support is the best practices are according regarding mental health psychosocial support. So that's the ideal scenario scenario. In reality, the field is shaped by very different actors and in the case of in particular of mental health professionals. They are themselves very diverse when it comes to training background level of experience and expertise. In the case of Venezuela and maybe Camilo can speak a little bit about Colombia but I understand it's very similar mental health and psychosocial support as a framework to approach intervention in the context of conflict emergency disasters etc is not part of the core curriculum of most university psychology courses. What does that that means that people do get training in psychotherapeutic interventions that may not necessarily be well suited to this context of emergency of refugees, such as psychodynamic psychotherapies CBT and many other greatly important and effective interventions but they're not necessarily the best suited for the type of work that we do when we think about mental health and social support. And in fact, the result of that is that if we go again thinking about the ISIC model that Alastair was mentioning at the beginning where mental health professionals are at the top of the pyramid. What ends up happening is that the majority of people who practice as mental health professionals, including myself not too long ago, think of themselves as only that the top of the pyramid. We only provide as mental health professionals specialized services in mental health. When you're in reality in the field, the presence of well trained mental health and psychosocial support practitioners is relevant throughout the triangle so from basic needs all the way up to the tip of the model. So to me, in my practice as a clinical psychologist and the work that we try to promote in SICO diaspora that split does not exist. In the field, we try to promote that in the training opportunities that we provide for SICO diaspora members and in the policy meetings and that we have in terms of the Venezuelan diaspora to promote the creation of training programs for mental health professionals to have access to a more specialized mental health and psychosocial support training specific to interventions in emergency conflict displacement like the ones that we are going through in Venezuela nowadays and I'm sure are also prevalent in Colombia. Thank you very much, Crystal, and thank you for the important work that you're doing with our Venezuelan brothers and sisters. And I would want to welcome Camilo Ramirez next Camilo Buenos dias. Okay, so highest work in Colombia is characterized by its community based approach, which potentiates spirituality. What model do you follow to ensure that your services are faith sensitive while remaining impartial. Thank you, Andreas, and thank you for the invitation to this event. First of all, I would like to just to highlight that we as high as serving as a humanitarian organization. We work with a wide variety of individuals and communities across the globe, coming from different cultural and religious backgrounds on the composition of our teams also reflects this great variety in terms of paid identities. Our MHPSS strategies are therefore not framed into the religious or faith based scope. However, we are becoming increasingly aware of the importance of the spirituality in the lives of some of those who seek to assist and about the potential value of exploring more effective ways of engagement with local paid actors in humanitarian settings. Equally, however, there is a concern about how to address these issues in a way that does not fit in humanitarian principles of impartiality and neutrality, or increasing any existing relation, religious tensions. Basically on the field, we are trying to boost their mental and physical recovery process through their spirituality and resilience capacity. And we have very good results, particularly in those cases where we are promoting durable solutions that guarantee some kind of sustainability. I would also like to highlight something related with the durable solutions part that as you may know, the Colombian government issue a law that promotes a temporary protection status for Venezuelans in Colombia for 10 years. And this is the key to maintain to promote these type of durable solutions that not also thinking about their wellness related with economical inclusion, but also included some some other aspects of mental health. That it's important to highlight in all these durable solution process that it's reinforced but all the efforts by the Colombian government actually. Thank you. What advice would you have for those in the audience who want to set off in a similar direction that is incorporating particular religious values and history in a way that is just empathetic and welcoming. Well, I have so many ideas that first thing then in some context highest invites faith leaders for interfaith dialogue through group discussions would include issues as how refugees need help or refer to them. What kind of issues they seek held with the type of assistance, the role of the players in assisting refugees in context. I think this is one of the aspects to promote this type of interfaith dialogues, the considering the, the importance of the faith leaders within the communities. It is important to listen to them as well. The other aspect that we have been facing actually in our operation here in Colombia providing assistance to them as well and refugees and migrants are relating to the importance to listen. The beneficiaries in this case we in some occasions we are just a scaling up models that have been functioning well in another context, but definitely we need to listen to them first and trying to adapt according to the context. I was, I was, I was listening crystal about the percentage of Venezuelan who are part of the Catholic community. It's around 71%. And this is an extremely important factor to when we determine to implement a new methodology and new initiative. We need to contextualize and the first thing we need to do is to listen to them. Thank you. Thank you, Camilo. Now we're going to move on to the section with questions from the audience. And this question, I think we can address it, or you can probably answer this question, Camilo, since it has to do with gender based violence and diversity, which I understand is a very important part of his work. So the question is the following. Talk about balancing faith sensitive mental health support when there is a conflict between religion and issues of diversity and inclusion, such as LGBTQ among refugees. Can you repeat the question, please? Yes, so I think the question is getting at how do you reconcile potential conflict between religion and issues of diversity and inclusion in LGBTQ and refugee populations. Thank you. I think, as I was mentioning, the most important part of the actions we have been carried out is we are not promoting any type of religion in the action we are carrying out. We want to maintain impartial. We want to just provide and to explain to the communities and the faith leaders that we are, it's a human being action. It's a human race action we have devoted into the communities. So the most important thing is to explain that our role is not to determine who's open to participate in activity or not, depends on their sexual orientation. We are trying to just explain if it's about, it's about to promote values in terms of to protect the refugees to provide solutions in terms of the human being needs. And basically what we are saying to them is that we are not the ones who decide that our actions or to participate in our actions depends on their sexual orientation. We are the ones who are saying that everyone, that these type of organizations in our case, we are open to provide assistance to any, from any, any, any religious beliefs, any sexual orientation, any, it's open to everyone. And that's the message we are trying to just to keep providing to also the communities on faith leaders within the communities we're working with. Elena, any thoughts on this question? Thank you so much. This is such an important question and one which has been addressed in academic research from a number of different disciplinary perspectives as well. And I think that what comes through very clearly through careful research on this topic is that neither faith based organizations nor secular organizations are automatically either conservative or progressive and into inverted commas with regards to gender roles and relations. Both secular organizations and regular religious organizations can carry gender limiting beliefs and practices. But a survey of attitudes towards LGBTQI asylum seekers conducted by the NGO, the organization for refugee asylum and migration, or for example, concluded that FBO's views on providing services to LGBTQI people are in fact no better or worse than the attitudes held by secular institutions. So there's often the assumption that faith based responses will be less progressive than secular ones, but this doesn't actually necessarily carry through to analysis of the responses that are being developed all by the perspectives of people who are receiving different forms of support through these organizations. And the example that I gave earlier of Lassa Ben Dados, the 72 network of shelters, specifically attempted to create spaces which are supportive of LGBTQI asylum seekers, refugees and migrants. And there are many, many other examples. It's not automatic, but it also cannot be assumed that faith based responses are not going to be supported and we need to continue exploring that relationship in an open and dialogical manner. Absolutely, very important. Now there's a question for Alistair from the audience. The following, what are best practices for practitioners to address working with different religious frameworks for overall well being? Thanks Andres. It's an important question. So I'm trying to start my video again if I'll start in a minute. You can hear me. I've been involved in developing a religious literacy handbook with Anna Rowlands, a colleague of Lainer's on the refugee host project. And I think we've learned two things through that process. One that religious literacy and being able to deal with different faith traditions is not about having a either a theological understanding of a variety of religious practices or a religion 101 course. It's very much around being open and listening and asking questions and engaging which has been the messages really throughout the panel so far. So rather than feeling that to deal with the religious tradition, you need to know key things about it. It's partly you need to be comfortable to be engaging such that you ask questions and the LBGTI issues that we discuss is a good example of that to not make presumptions about someone's religious beliefs or practices, but to be open to discussing them. So principally, I have to say that the main elements of religious literacy is about being comfortable in uncomfortable situations when you're dealing with groups of diverse views, views of which you're not familiar, but managing to maintain openness and engagement. So that's the first principle. The second one slightly is nonetheless, it's clear that we should know more about culture and religion to a local level. We should collate and learn over time and the value and simply value the project and receive your involved in in terms of developing that deeper understanding of a locality. So we're not perpetually in the role of just listening and asking very basic questions, but we do learn of faith traditions. We do learn of customs and practices. We do learn of tensions and how they're managed and protected against. So there's something about a maturity related over time and in deep knowledge of a context. And I think this, it was all mentioned earlier from the importance of understanding contextualization of interventions in this case means having a deep understanding of context and how religious belief and practices will interact with that. So we need to listen, and we need to learn. Appreciate that. Thank you very much for the explanation. Now we would like to welcome Jerry White. Jerry White is known for leading high impact campaigns, including the campaign, the international campaign to ban my land mine mines and the UN Convention of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. He served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State and launched the Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations. He's currently professor of practice in religion and politics at the University of Virginia for some closing remarks. Thank you, Jerry. Rookie mistake, but thank you for inviting me and I'm really inspired and motivated by the panelists and the opening and the intention of USIP to convene this diverse group of expertise and practitioners with a very strong message. I think coming from Aleister's overview, you know, to start us out and even in his last commentary for genuine deeper listening to the religiously motivated and inherently spiritual communities among and with whom we work. So with his faith sensitive guidelines, I think that's a real boost forward compared to when I was in this space working inside the State Department, trying to look at how to engage faith based actors and seeing a lack of religious literacy and sensitivity in our training of ambassadors and foreign service officers. Elena, thank you for I think your wide ranging country experience which brings the stories and the importance of local rituals and basic needs support to accompany the suffering, including I had not thought of although it seems obvious to me now after you said it this ritual of treating people and their right to burial and death like the full life cycle that this is a holistic response and your faith starts in your family as a child and ends at your death and then the community grieving. So thank you for that as well Elena with Wilson on his you know taking time from field research to tape is important message. I want to talk about his work and thinking about what are this bio psycho social health that really emphasizes the social context of people in trauma. And it affects both the brain and the body so this combination of like the art and science of psycho social sport. The art seems to me this spirituality and inherent resilience of faith based communities, combined with seeing what's happening on the health with in terms of the body and other illnesses that manifest in traumatized populations. Please dial thank you also for your sense of the need for taking an inventory of all the pre existing psycho social strengths, resilience and local traditions, and understanding that context as well and working among in between and with that inherent and also maintaining the respect and to learn from faith sensitive approaches and this ongoing respect for for ritual that will reiterate the sense of belonging and agency. And then this idea of how do you sort support the practitioners and the trainers and this need for tools to to become stronger and more sensitive. And also, thank you for the reminder of some of the basics of humanitarian response and the importance of adhering to the principles of neutrality and impartiality, and then what came out in the, the identity, the faith sexual orientation and other communication across the board. So very proud to be hearing and learning from each of you. I love the US IP has been able to make these connections for myself, I had worked maybe 20 plus years in war zones, and where we don't have very many psycho social professionals so with my work with landmine survivors and war victims in particular, we took advantage of your the bottom up support from peer networks with trained peer counselors, reaching out to other people who have been traumatized that that tapped into the local context of resilience, and was very exciting to learn from that because waiting around for the final trainings or that there'd be actually a mental health, you know, practitioner expert inside some of the camps among displaced persons or where people live in communities. That was a challenge. So I think looking more practically at where are the bottom up approaches that we can learn from and actually a company as well so I think. Lastly, I would say that really the respect that I've learned for interfaith work and dialogue and was sort of the use of indigenous circles, this egalitarian like community bow to the land to the spirit into the people. We can find this all around the world and even the research at Yale University on resilience says that there are 10 major hallmarks to consider. So when I work with them, I trust this sort of list. I'll just mention them. And I want you to think about how social and how communal recovery actually is. So the Western models of individual therapy and whatnot have strong limitations applied to war zones around the world, but the hallmarks are optimism, altruism, giving, having a moral compass, faith and spirituality, humor, a big sign of resilience, having a role model, having social support back to the peer support and family support, facing fears, having a mission, and has been mentioned on this panel the need for training. But if you ask where do you find such inherent resilience? It's not at a soccer game. It's not in a political rally. It's not necessarily in your spiritual community, in your faith community, in understanding the value of religion to help us build collective and social resilience to therefore survive, as well as address each other's basic needs. I'm so excited by this conversation. It brings together many strands of people I've met over the years and my great respect for Andreas and USIP. So I want to thank everyone on the panels, all the participants out there to keep the dialogue going and please submit as much in the shared knowledge. I go back to the words I think that Alistair was saying about having listening, building upon, sharing and involving, but also with practical next steps. So keep the ideas coming and the sharing will benefit us all. Thank you. Thank you so much, Jerry, for those closing remarks and sharing those hallmarks at the end, which I will definitely revisit after this conversation. Hi everyone. So we are now at the end of our event and I know we along with those tuning in live wish we had more time for this conversation. We know going in there was so much interest expressed in joining today's discussion, which just tells you how much interest there is moving forward working on these efforts together. We hope this will be the start of an ongoing conversation on this topic and I am deeply grateful for each one of you, our panelists, our speakers for joining us today and for sharing your stories and experiences on this topic. Thank you everyone for joining us today for a thoughtful and timely conversation about a very important set of issues. I will hand it over to my colleague, Andres, to wrap up. Thank you again. Thank you, Nita. So as we build this community of practice, we would like to invite everyone in the audience and of course our experts and panelists to continue their involvement to follow the work that we're doing in our website newsletter. We will be posting blogs and some of the results and findings of this important work. Thank you very much everyone and have a great day.