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FROM THE FIELD

Qiuqiu the panda lends to psychosocial support
30 Mar 2009 15:56:00 GMT
 Source: International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) - Switzerland
By Francis Markus, IFRC, in Shifang, Sichuan

Website: Website: http://www.ifrc.org/

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Students at the Yinghua Middle School in Shifang, Sichuan Province, taking part in a psychosocial support activity, using Qiuqiu the panda to help them express their emotional feelings. The technique has been used in many other disasters. The community in this part of China has been hard hit by the disaster, with most local residents still living in temporary shelters or tents. (p-CHN0039)
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Students at the Yinghua Middle School in Shifang, Sichuan Province, taking part in a psychosocial support activity, using Qiuqiu the panda to help them express their emotional feelings. The technique has been used in many other disasters. The community in this part of China has been hard hit by the disaster, with most local residents still living in temporary shelters or tents. (p-CHN0039)
By Francis Markus

Background

•  China earthquake 2008

•  Earthquakes

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The urgent noise of a pair of chopsticks drumming on a large enamel food basin stops and a teenage girl, muffled up against the winter chill in a yellow anorak, stands up. Holding the furry toy panda in her hands, she begins the narrative session.

"After his parents died in the earthquake, Qiuqiu (the panda's name) wandered around for a while, before deciding to rebuild the family's house with his own two hands," she says. Then it is time for the next student, here at Minzhu Hongda Middle School in the heart of Sichuan's earthquake zone, to take up their own narrative of Qiuqiu.

The name means Little Ball, "which is significant in itself, giving the idea of rolling on with life," says IFRC Health and Psychosocial Support Delegate Dr Jeya Kulasingam, who's brought the activity to the school today. "The panda is an animal with which the community here identifies, especially as pandas were themselves caught up in the disaster - they're survivors too," he adds.

This method of second party story telling can still play a useful role in allowing the children to move forward with their narratives without having to revisit their pain and grief. "It's all about their recovery process; how they recovered from the pain and grief," says Dr Jeya, a veteran of seven post-earthquake relief and recovery operations.

Qiuqiu's help

It's interesting to observe that the children hold the panda in very different ways, some very tight, some upside down, some looking at it as they talk - giving a window into different psychological states. A couple of them appear completely choked up and unable to continue at certain points.

"It is not unusual to see this in an exercise of this kind after a disaster, but what is unusual is for this to happen at such an early stage," says Dr Jeya. "Normally you would see that at a later stage, while at the beginning, it would be pandas riding around on bicycles and other fun, lightweight things like that, but not here."

For her part, teacher Luo Yumei, who has participated in several psychosocial trainings, including some from the Red Cross Society of China programme, Sunshine in your heart, is clear that the children's state of mind has greatly improved in the last few months. Ms Luo says the students' state of mind has made steady progress since the last time we visited the school in early November.

Sunshine in your heart

Less than an hour's drive away, in the hills outside the town of Shifang, is the middle school in the township of Yinghua. This is where Sunshine in your heart conducted a three-day psychosocial training for teachers and children in November last year.

The first sight which greets us is a lively game of ping pong in progress. One of the two boys playing is among the several children who have lost legs as a result of their earthquake injuries. His crutches are propped up against the ping pong table. Not only is he able to hold his own in the game, but also shows great agility in hopping off to retrieve the ball each time it is hit off the table.

Once we find a classroom and get underway with the panda narrative, it's noticeable that even though on the surface, this community would appear to have been more severely impacted, the children's psychological reactions show a greater degree of recovery. When we ask them to address Qiuqiu the panda and introduce themselves and their families' hopes for them, they become more serious and sombre, in contrast with the rest of the session, when they express themselves through the intermediary of the panda. But there is no choking up.

Children as barometer

Dr Wang Wenzhong, director of the Crisis Intervention Centre in Sichuan, one of the psychologists conducting the November training, confirms that "there are very big differences in the way various communities are affected." Children may not at this stage necessarily be those worst impacted, he says, "but they are very easily influenced by the adults," who shoulder the burden of worry about the family's economic losses.

"Kids are a good indicator of what's going on in a whole community," says Dr Jeya, "and with people restricted to having only one or sometimes two kids, the children's welfare and development becomes the communities' main concern, so we need to use this to continue and broaden our work."

Seeing clear evidence in the kids' behaviour that the activity demonstrated therapeutic value, Dr Jeya plans to develop a toolkit of narrative methods for teachers, including Qiuqiu and further techniques using puppets and further materials adapted from those used by the Psychosocial Reference Centre.

The IFRC plans to offer help with training psychosocial support volunteers and funding for a dedicated psychosocial professional in the disaster area. That work will form a part of the IFRC's integrated programming in support of the Red Cross Society of China.


[ Any views expressed in this article are those of the writer and not of Reuters. ]

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[ Any views expressed in this article are those of the writer and not of Reuters. ]

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