COUNSELLING INTERVENTION FOR BUDO COMMUNITY

The gruesome massacre by arson of 20 children with the modal age of 10years in this century at Budo Junior School in Uganda on the 14th April 2008 is unbelievable. Everybody should condemn this brutality and be in solidarity with the most affected kin of the deceased.  It is only these young angels who will enlighten our mind to accept what they went through. My prayer is that they bring quick and soothing intervention to the relations they separated from.

Recently one high ranking personality in government said over one FM radio that he did not want to talk about the Budo massacre for fear of refreshing wounds, agony of all those who are mourning the beloved children.

There could be countless others who might feel tempted to keep mum for the same reason. I should tell you that whether we keep silent or continue to talk about the Budo massacre it is not yet over. We should only brace ourselves to tackle what is yet to come.  This brief reflection is an attempt to graciously buttress for the eventuality in connection with the Budo incident.

The demise of these young angels made me contemplate on two things that quite often are not given their preeminence at a moment of loss. The Budo massacre denotes these two issues: the loss of life and loss of persons/affinity. The majority of us are mourning these two aspects.

Significantly it is the children who suffered both aspects, namely, the loss of life and the separation from their beloved ones. The rest of us suffered severed affinity.

The loss of life came once and for all. It is only the perished young children who knew and who experienced what it means to lose life. However death will never persist on them any more. Death has seen its end with the demise of these children.

In ending someone’s life like it happened at Budo, there must be an exchange of some sort. The children lost their life to the murderers and unconsciously in exchange the children were handed a banner written on “NATURAL JUSTICE.” It is this banner that they are now flying in their new abode which is timeless and without space. It is this banner that must take its due course. They are not going to avenge their death because this is characteristic of human endeavour. But their new acquired responsibility is to enable those who massacred them to have the courage to meet the promptings of natural justice.

If loss of life and affinities is sweet or bitter the murderers must embrace themselves to taste this recipe. Since in the children’s new abode, time and space is immaterial, natural justice visiting those who organized, participated and carried out the massacre will strike at its own convenience.  It can either take place within our time or outside it meaning that the murderers or their dear ones at any moment of human existence will not escape the full weight with interest.  This is the most absurd and incomprehensible full weight of natural justice.

Those of us who would feel the temptation to avenge the lives of the dear children cannot do it to the satisfaction of those who are now open to all reality, time and space.  The children are now exposed to the full reality of the origin, planning, execution and the aftermath of that sinister massacre for which we mortals it is just a matter of speculation. So at the appropriate time natural justice will definitely catch up. The only favour the children could do for us is to witness in our lifetime the execution of natural justice. May be we may ask this from them.

The second reality of the massacre is that parents, relatives, and significant others lost persons or affinities that existed with the children.  We never lost life as the children did. We are still alive. We looked at loss of life from an angle and from a distance because we never experienced it ourselves. The pain and bitterness of losing one’s life we cannot describe it because we have not gone through it. Death is still with us and it is tormenting us every moment of life, unlike the perished children who can no longer be tormented by death.

Because we are still alive and at the same time we lost our affinities that is where the agony lies. We lost our children, sisters, relatives, friends, schoolmates, classmates etc.  This is a situation we are to live with which by all means has compromised our mental health with consequences of trauma, depression, separation anxiety disorder, attention deficit, panic, obsessive-compulsive disorders, phobias and posttraumatic stress.

It is also very likely for the pupil community and especially for the survivors to experience reactive behaviour to the trauma reminders that can result into reckless behaviour or extreme avoidant behaviours that are detrimental to their development as human beings. Of course each one will continue with life but the level of mental health functioning and impairment will depend on individual resiliency and intervention.  So it is not yet over for us.  We need a lot of intervention to cope with this new sad experience.

Among the strategies to cope is the need to see justice expeditiously done according to our human standards. The state machinery has an important part to play or else it aggravates the mental health functioning of the affected kith and kin.  It should be seen to be on the side of the affected relations. Any interpretation of apparent diversion from the anxiety-prone relations will perpetuate mental health illness with dire consequences.

There are evidence -based practices that can be sought to help cope with this debilitating situation. These include: psychosocial, medication, counseling/psychotherapy and preventive intervention.

Among the psychosocial, the parents, relatives, all different community agencies, associations, be at village level, church etc, should come in and offer the needed company and presence to the afflicted. They can come in to help face this phenomenon. They should not create the impression that they are helping one to forget the agony or sweep everything under carpet but rather to assist in accepting the reality of separation.

The parents of the survivors should watch very closely their children who would exhibit fright for no apparent reason. They might be developing recurrent, or re-experiencing of the event, through flashbacks, nightmares or images. They might be avoiding any stimuli at home, which remind them of the event, e.g., being in the house, fire or specific time when the incident happened.  Some might show increased signs of arousal, e.g., lack of sleep or easily irritated, change in cognitive behaviours, avoidance or any other signs.

Consultations with mental health workers e.g a counselor, psychologists, psychiatrists is highly recommended for both parents and children. These can be very instrumental in the healing process.

Prayer intervention is another efficacious therapy for those who hold a strong reality of connectivity between the earthly and the supernatural intervention in life.

The children need to be talked to through our family intervention systems or even seek professional assistance.  The parents should not insist on where the child might continue with schooling.  They should seriously talk about it before the new term starts.  In case the child is very specific and concerned with trauma reminders it is likely that this child may take long to settle where those reminders are going to be part and parcel of the daily environment.

Norman Nsereko

Counselling Pyschologist