Walking together: Healing and hope for Colombian refugees

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Planning for the future: One of the most important aspects of healing from trauma involves survivors
shifting their attention from the traumatic events to a focus on the present and planning for the future. As
your relationship with the refugee family deepens, discover what dreams and goals they have, both for
the short term and the long term. If they are unable to formulate goals, spend some time talking together
and helping them discover their hopes and goals. Help them to find a balance between realistic goals
and not becoming overwhelmed or discouraged by goals that take a longer time to reach. As a church
you can play an integral role in encouraging and supporting members of the refugee family to work
towards their goals, whether they are small goals, like getting a guitar and bringing music back into their
life, or larger goals such as getting a job or writing their life story. As refugees identify and work towards
their goals a sense of meaning and control over their life will return.
Physical exercise: For many Colombian refugees, physical exercise was part of daily life: physical labour
such as farm work, construction or walking many kilometers a day would have been commonplace,
especially for refugees from rural settings. Even in Colombia’s cities many displaced people find themselves
walking or biking long distances since they can’t afford to pay for public transportation. In Canadian cities,
physical exertion is not necessarily part of daily life, and as a result refugees in Canada often live a rather
sedentary life compared to the amount of physical activity in which they had previously engaged. As the
refugee’s support group, you can help your refugee family learn about the physical and mental benefits
of intentionally taking daily exercise: let them know that refugee trauma survivors who are physically
active have reported that they sleep better, have more energy, enjoy better moods and an overall sense
of wellbeing. The refugee family will likely need your help and encouragement to discover ways to stay
physically active in their new environment. Consider having different families from the church invite the
refugee family to accompany them as they participate in different physical activities: swimming at the
local pool, using the local gym, participating in different classes or activities at the community recreation
center. Perhaps you could help connect members of the refugee family with community sports groups
such as soccer teams. Invite them to join you on walks or jogs in local parks.
Find different ways to relax: It sounds like common sense that relaxing can help trauma survivors
cope with trauma symptoms; however, we all sometimes need to be reminded to take time to relax. It
may be helpful for you to talk to the refugee family about this and help them find ways to intentionally
relax. There are many different, simple activities that you could suggest to help promote relaxation:
drinking tea, listening to calming music or dancing to latin music, reading a book, taking walks, gardening,
caring for a pet, taking a warm bath, lighting candles, getting a massage or practicing meditative prayer
such as centering prayer, to name only a few.
Just as it is important for each of us to know what helps us relax (and most likely we do know), it is
useful for the members of the refugee family to find out what they can do to relax. It is likely that the
members of the refugee family know what they like to do to relax - they surely found ways to relax before
their refugee journey began. However, they may need your encouragement to get started again, or to
discover new ways that they can relax and release new tensions here in Canada. Have someone from
the refugee support group talk to the family about ways in which they would like to relax: find out what
helped them relax in the past and what they would like to do now, perhaps giving them some new ideas.