An afternoon at the Acholi Quarters.

What a beautiful way to end my Africa travels – with friends at Acholi Quarters.

It started with a ‘business meeting’ with Harriet and Miriam  - going through the various aspects of life that CRED supports in the community and catching up on how everything is going, and how all the children are getting on. So encouraging to hear lots of positive updates:

-         -  students that are taking the equivalent of GCSEs and in so doing being the first in their respective families ever to achieve this.

-          - Students who are getting improved results year on year as they work hard and are encouraged by their parents

-          - Children who are attending the Hopeful Haven programme regularly and making real progress with their literacy and numeracy

-          - Parents that are taking the initiative to support their children more in their education

-         -  Parents that are using the savings scheme as an opportunity to put little bits of money away, rather than risk having it in the house and spending it without thinking

-          - Two university students who are now half way through their studies and enjoying industry placements – again, a first in their families

-          - Adult literacy classes that have restarted and are being enjoyed and utilised by many of the members of the group

But I was also reminded how fragile life is, and how challenging things can be when the price of food and fuel goes up. Harriet shared how many of the families are struggling to put food on the table every day, all due to the increased costs of living, and the struggle to find work when many companies are having to reduce their expenses in order to survive. Thank goodness for the regular donors to CRED foundation which meant that I was able to dip into some funds and make a small payment to Harriet to share with the others, so that all will receive a food parcel of basic goods.

The other aspect of my visit this time was to observe a lesson taking place that is part of a ‘Classroom in a Box’ project. Through this project, a box of resources is made available to the Hopeful Haven team, along with demonstration lessons on how to use the various bits of kit. The box included a map of Uganda, a game of scrabble, a game of monopoly, flashcards, a spelling and math game for younger children and more. It was beautiful to watch the children really engaging with the items, and enjoying the opportunity to practise literacy and numeracy skills in ways that are so much more exciting than the usual worksheets and learning by rote. Am so grateful to Julius and the ‘Classroom in a Box’ team for investing in these children to help improve their engagement with education and to help them discover that learning is fun. And congratulations to Timothy who came first in the Scrabble game, closely followed by Ema in second!

Am forever grateful to my friends in the Acholi community for making me feel so welcome and at home there. For all the lovely chats, for the hugs and hellos, and for allowing me the honour of being able to journey with them through life’s ups and downs. Until the next time, Apwoyo & Wot Maber (thank you and goodbye, in Acholi language)

 

 

The Effect of 360 Life Training Skills - feedback from India

 [this blog has been written by Janaki, a friend from India who is director of a school where I delivered 360Life training last year. It is humbling to read what follows. The child's name is changed but permission has been granted to share his photo]

In October 2025, 360Life ( Identity • Healing • Wellbeing )Training was done by Sis Helen Harrison in our school. After that, God spoke to me to give quality time to the school children also and to mentor them for their bright future. 

Sis. Helen taught us that every behaviour has a reason behind it. She taught us the 360 Life Skills - how to observe the child completely, how to understand the pain behind the anger, how to listen without judging, and how to respond with love and patience.

Before the training our teachers and I used to counsel and care for children with different attitudes in our school. We never ignored any child. We always tried our best to council them with love.
But after the 360 Life Training everything changed. The training made us more active and more accurate.

Before training we cared. After training we understood HOW to care effectively.

This change is not just seen by the teachers in our school, but I have personally experienced it as well. I have seen some truly amazing transformations with my own eyes, and I would love to share a few of those precious stories and change

 

*The Story of Vikram - When Comparison Becomes a Wound*

Vikram is just 10 years old, studying in 5th class.
At home, his parents complained about him every day. They would say very harshly, "He behaves very rudely at home. We cannot bear him anymore."

But the same Vikram was a different boy in school. He was a smart, well-behaved, he studied well, he got good marks, and he was a favourite of all his teachers. The teachers could not understand - how can a boy who is so good in school be so rude at home?

But behind the walls of his house, there was another painful truth that no one knew. Every day, his parents used to beat him very severely at home. I will not describe here, but it was very bad beatings.

Once, when teachers tried to talk to his mother about this, she turned against the teachers and shouted at them loudly in reverse. Because of that, the teachers became afraid to talk to his parents again.

All these matters came to me, the school director, through the teachers. When I called that little boy and looked at him, I felt so much pain in my heart. I asked him lovingly, "What happened Vikram?"

He did not speak anything at first. He was completely silent. But I did not give up. With the patience and skills I learned from the 360 Life Training by Sis. Helen Harrison, I continued to talk to him slowly, day after day, without forcing him. This all happened in the first week of November 2025.

One day, while we were talking, suddenly Vikram held me tightly and started crying loudly. That was the first time he opened his heart. Slowly, through tears, he started telling his story.

"They always compare me with all other children," he cried. "They say, 'Look how they are and how you are.' They keep insulting me, saying I am good for nothing. They beat me saying I am not like others."
That was his real problem.

 Actually, Vikram was a good student. He was getting good marks. His behaviour in school was very good. But his parents were never happy with that. They always praised other children in front of him and insulted him saying, "Giving you food itself is a waste." And if he cried when they insulted him like that, they would beat him even more. So sad. So painful for a 10-year-old heart.

I hugged him and told him, "I will talk to your parents. Don't cry Vikram." I counseled him with 360 Life Skills - with love, with affirmation, telling him that he is unique, he is precious, and God has made him wonderfully. Slowly, he became strong. His confidence came back.

At that same time, we had a School Parents Meeting. Nearly 500 parents came to that meeting. Vikram’s parents also came. In that meeting, I was speaking about the 360 Life Training. I was sharing that "Children are God's gift. They are very precious. We should never compare one child with another child. God has created every child as unique and special."

While I was speaking those words, something unexpected happened. Suddenly, Vikram’s mother, who was sitting in the crowd, was filled with tears. Her eyes were full of water. She started crying loudly in front of all 500 parents.
With a broken heart, she openly said in front of everyone, "Until today, I have done wrong. I have done a big mistake." She was deeply moved and repented. Those words changed her completely.
That day became a turning point for that family.

It has been nearly one year now. Vikram’s parents are both very happy now. There are no more problems between them. That painful chapter is completely closed.

Now Vikram is studying in 6th class with a big smile, with confidence, and with peace in his heart.

This is the power of 360 Life Training. It not only changes children, it changes parents, it changes families.

 

 

Trauma training in Malawi

 

The 360Life training that I’ve just delivered in Malawi has been wonderful in so many ways, as well as giving some valuable insights into the reality of life in this country.

The training was primarily for 45 community counsellors who work across 3 different rural communities based within 30 miles of Lilongwe and are all part of a Malawian non-profit called Abundant Life Centres (ALC). There were also 5 participants from a sister organisation called Seeds of Promise, that also provides community counselling as part of its portfolio of projects, but in a different location to ALC. Both Abundant Life Centres, and Seeds of Promise are partners of Links charity (www.links.charity) and it was thanks to my links with Links (excuse the play on words) that I got linked with ALC and SOP.

The participants included about 10 clan chiefs. These individuals have an inherited role, although they are not always the first born in their family. It is a role that includes a significant amount of conflict resolution as they are called on to help resolve disagreements between members of the clan. These might be around issues relating to property rights, relationship breakdowns, inheritance claims etc. A lot of wisdom is clearly needed to be a chief, and it was very special to have them as part of the training, and just sitting alongside the others, with no sense of hierarchy or expected privilege.

The location for the training was one of the ALC communities, and it was fab to be out in the rural community rather than in a city. It was also really good to be delivering the training at the heart of where ALC started, and to be able to look around at the programmes that are delivered by each of the ALC hubs. These include feeding programmes, empowerment programmes for youth, widows and single mothers, pass a pig forwards, and community counselling. As a result, the background hum to the training was a mix of children playing, goats bleating, pigs squealing and birds chirping. A very rural and beautiful mix!

The training went so well. Yes, 50 participants in a simple brick building with air temperature of late 20’s at least and no electricity for fans or to run a projector does make for a fairly intense time, and required some last minute creativity in adapting my presentation style. But the participation was really good and the room buzzed whenever I asked them to get into small groups to chat about the learning and contextualise it to their situation. 

 

The dedication to the learning was humbling – the groups from the two ALC hubs that were further away came on bicycles. I later discovered that one group came from 20km away and the other from 32km away. So that’s a good 2 hours of cycling, in flipflops, with a sarong wrap around their waste. And they must have started by 6am to get to the training venue in time – what dedication, what determination to receive the training.

As I travel to different countries, delivering the training to different nationalities, I always find it fascinating to see what the different perceptions are about the causes of trauma. Sadly, there are some that always crop up – domestic violence, sexual and physical abuse, childhood traumas. And there are others that become unearthed as participants start to understand more what the concept of trauma incorporates – those hidden away traumas, the ones happening behind closed doors, the ongoing microaggressions etc.

But there are also the traumas that are more specific to one country and the nature of what they are or have recently been enduring. In the case of Malawi, the traumas that were being named as current in the lives of so many are those relating to recent episodes of drought and also to floods that have resulted in ruined harvest, loss of food security, and increased poverty for many. The financial situation for many was also cited – in part due to the food shortages, but also the repercussions of the increase in fuel prices around the world, and due to job insecurities that come through living in a country that is high on the list of countries struggling with endemic poverty. Cyclone Freddy was a specific incident etched on the mind as a traumatic experience. Corrupt politicians and the impact that they are having on the day-to-day function of the country was another issue mentioned by many as causing much stress and upset to all.

And now a big and very stressful situation (which some call traumatic in its repercussions) is the fuel crisis. Essentially the nation has almost no fuel, and so all the petrol stations stand empty except for when the occasional tanker comes through. Cars, motorbikes, trucks and minibuses all line the roads around the fuel stations, hoping to be one of the lucky ones to be able to get to the front of the queue to get fuel when it arrives. Some of the fuel stations run organised queuing systems, but in other places the battle for the front of the queue is less dignified. There is also a growing market in illegally sourced fuel, which is selling at 4 times the price. For those who can afford it, this is turning out to be the preferred way to find some fuel and so keep their vehicles going. But for the bus and minibus drivers, the way to afford it is to put the ticket price up, and so the ripple effect of this crisis goes way beyond the vehicle owners.

Whilst not all of these issues might technically be called ‘traumatic experiences’ in the purest sense of the term, there is no denying the hugely negative impact that they are having on the mental wellbeing of the Malawians. And the lack of light at the end of the tunnel for this country as it battles these issues makes it even harder for them.

Sitting with the participants and talking with them about these issues, and also sharing with them about what it means to have a more trauma-informed perspective in their counselling and programme work, there was no doubt in their minds just how useful and timely the training was. It was an honour to come alongside these wonderful folks, and input into their work in even just some small way, and I pray that through the training, a little more rays of hope will shine in this beautiful but struggling country.

 

 

 

360Life GNG TOT training complete

There were two reasons for me to come to Zambia (well, initially there were 3, but one of them failed to materialise) – one was to meet up with CRED partners Aaron and Josephine from Chisomo. And the other was to deliver a week of training for some key folks from Good News Global (Africa), a faith-based organisation that is made up of prison chaplains across the continent who go into their local prisons, and deliver a range of different discipleship and life-skills programmes to the inmates. Through their work in the prisons they therefore input to the prisoners, but also have many opportunities to speak to the prison staff as well.

Today, I finished my part of the delivery, and what a good week it’s been. The participants were from Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi and Zambia, and included national directors for GNG from those countries as well as three from the Africa regional office.

All of them had taken part in 360Life training before at some point, and a pre-requisite for this training was that they all did the online video training as well. As a result, the participants were much more clued in about the materials, and we were able to go deeper than I am normally able to go on the subject matter.

Throughout the training there were lots of opportunities to contextualise the learning, both to the prison context, and as relating to any cultural nuances or traditions that were pertinent to the conversation. In this way it was interesting to hear not just how much overlap there was regarding the types of trauma and mental health struggles that prisoners from the different countries experience, but also to acknowledge some of the differences that were highlighted. These include traumas experienced as a result of being in the prison, and also traumatic events and experiences that happen outside the prison – some of which might have been a precursor to whatever it was that landed the prisoner inside.

For example, Malawi included more trauma due to natural disasters than the other countries, whilst political unrest featured higher for Kenya. One issue that was more present in the Zambian answers related to the death of a loved one, and the response of the bereaved wider family regarding inheritance of land, perpetrator of the death etc. Some of the tales that they shared of particular examples of trauma were very tough to hear, including some cultural practices and witch-craft induced traumas, various types of abuse, and examples of intergenerational gender-based violence. 

But, there were also many similar causes of trauma and presentations of mental health issues between the countries – in fact there were more similarities than differences particularly relating to conditions inside prison and the trauma of incarceration. This dominance of similarities was just as well given that one of the outputs from the training was to be a contextualised version of 360Life that GNG Africa would roll out via these participants to use with all of their volunteers and chaplains in their countries. So, after 3 days of me delivering the materials, with lots of participation and interaction along the way, day 4 was all about the participants distilling the training down to some key slides that make up the slide deck for them to use going forward.

It has been a real joy to be here with these wonderful folks. Their dedication towards bringing hope and light into the dark places of prisons is an inspiration, and it is humbling to hear how they are reaching out to those who are so marginalised, stigmatised and on the very edges of society.

It was with great delight that I handed out the certificates of completion today, and heard their thoughts on what they are planning on doing as soon as they return home. I have no doubt that these plans will be put into practice, and I thank God for this opportunity to serve alongside these folks and in some small way to sow seeds that I pray will reap a harvest of healing and hope.