NEW: Humanitarian OutReach Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo

ATOP Humanitarian Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo:
Post War Rehabilitation and Recovery
Post Trauma Healing, Empowerment, Transformation, Training and Supervision
Pre-press release 2011

Few countries have seen the amount of violence that the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has seen in the past decades. Since 1996 the fourth largest African state has seen wars with its neighbors, civil wars, and other forms of violence that have proliferated immense poverty and famine, an AIDS/HIV epidemic, increasing rape rates and gender intolerance. The International Rescue Committee estimated that over 5.4 million people have died from the prolonged conflict, that Nicholas D. Kristof of the New York Times says is being “ignored” by the international community. The vicious cycle of hate and fear seems almost unbreakable for the citizens of the DRC.

Our organization, The Association for Trauma Outreach & Prevention (ATOP) of Meaningful World, a New York based international organization affiliated with DPI of the United Nations, devoted to fostering a, just, peaceful, and meaningful world, has collaborated with many organizations to bring rehabilitation programs to Sierra Leone in March of 2009, and over 29 other humanitarian empowerment, educational, and rehabilitation programs around the world including Haiti. Our mission to DR Congo will focus on the city of Bukavu, home to nearly half a million people, including 500 displaced children. We are collaborating with the Peace Center there, as well as Université de la Paix, refugee centers, and hospitals in the area. We will be working with vulnerable groups of children, women who were raped in the war, refugees and older adults. We have the experience and expertise to make a difference. ATOP team members that will be traveling to Congo are: Dr. Ani Kalayjian – Founder and President of ATOP. Dr. Kalayjian has devoted her life to bringing healing to those who have survived the devastation of disaster. Dr Isidore A. Udoh is a postdoctoral fellow at the HIV Center for Clinical and Behavioral Studies at the New York State Psychiatric Institute and Columbia University, and Jennifer De Mucci – Vice President of ATOP, holds a Master’s degree in psychology.

Our goals are to help survivors heal their emotional and psychospiritual wounds resulting from years of armed conflict, poverty, discrimination, and displacement. We aim to help surviving communities understand the impact of the past on their present through education, healing groups, and self-healing. We will train psychologist, social workers, nurses and other health care practitioners. This helps create educated and healthy communities that are able to transform generationally transmitted trauma by cultivating a new world view, train and educate high school teachers and students to nurture non-violence in their respective communities, and foster communal dialogue for conflict transformation and peace-building through practicing forgiveness. We also plan to help mobilize communities, facilitating healthy partnerships that build bridges of diversity through common values centered on the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

We need your volunteer spirit! Come spend 2 weeks to make a difference in your life as well as in the lives of hundreds of people. Your generous donations are vital to make this ATOP of Meaningfulworld humanitarian outreach project a success. Our first team will depart July 1st to 12, 2011. Donations can be made via check or Pay-Pal (see www.meaningfulworld.com for more details). Checks should be made out to ATOP and mailed to ATOP 135 Cedar St, Cliffside Park, NJ 07010.

Good intentions are no longer enough. I wanted to support humanity in my own way. Meaningful World was a natural way for me to help the victims of tsunami.

So many systems have failed us and as we transition from failed models, attitudes and behaviors that are polarizing, destructive and failing all around us I could not just sit back, be overwhelmed and do nothing… I am doing something with Meaningful World.

Meaningful World cultivates well-being, relatedness, a deep awareness and understanding how to elevate some of the world's suffering. Our choices impact all living systems and I choose to be an agent of good.