here - Education Management Corporation

Inland Empire
Bringing Help and Hope to
Orphaned Children in Rwanda
In a country like Rwanda, where more than 60% of residents live below the poverty line and more than 83% live in
rural areas, the daily struggle to provide basic necessities like clean drinking water, food and protection from diseases
like malaria can be overwhelming. Unfortunately, it is often the case that those developing nations often suffer from a
history of violence and political instability that leaves citizens and future generations scarred and without the mental
health resources to recover.
Argosy University, Inland Empire Director of Clinical Training and Assistant Professor Dr. Brenda Navarrete is
working to make a difference with the Coalition for Change, an organization dedicated to improving mental health
services in developing countries. Over the winter break, her efforts extended to rural Rwanda, where she worked near
the Congo border to develop a mental health program for the Noel Orphanage.
The Noel Orphanage is the largest of its kind in the nation, serving more than 600 orphans. Its children are victims of a
series of devastating traumas and events – orphaned, in many cases, for reasons tied to the 1994 100-day genocide that
took place in the country. Orphans at Noel are victims of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, abandonment, extreme poverty, and
a poor health care system that leaves a high mortality rate for
mothers during childbirth. The orphanage serves children from
infants to young adults, and strives to meet their needs in a country
with little money to help counter this type of ongoing and largescale
suffering.
During her trip, Dr. Navarrete implemented a mental health
program that included a manual she developed for use with
the children. Training modules on general mental health, child
development, depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder,
grief and loss, and attachment were presented in the guide. In
addition, she developed a workbook of activities for the children that
focused on improving mood, self-esteem, relaxation, meditation and
identity development.
Her time at the orphanage was spent training nurses and other longterm
staff on how to identify mental health symptoms in children
and how to use the activities she had developed with the children.
This manual was translated in Kinyarwanda and is currently in use.
Dr. Navarrete also worked with administrative staff from the
orphanage and from several medical clinics in the area to develop
crisis management plans for addressing events such as reports of
physical and sexual abuse in their facilities.
“I believe we are all capable of making a great impact on our society,
probably more than we realize. Whether this impact be good or bad,
the magnitude of the impact is up to us,” said Navarrete. “We all
have gifts and resources to offer others whether it be in our local or
international communities. This does not require for us to have any
unusual talents or abilities, just the belief that our actions are capable
of bringing about positive change in the world. My trip to Rwanda
was an extremely rewarding experience that provided me with
valuable opportunities for cultural exchange and personal growth. It
reinforced my sense of global responsibility and my enthusiasm for
greater social involvement.”