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 One of the priorities of the Federation of Anglophone Africans in Belgium (FAAB) is to promote health education to our diverse communities.Therefore, in keeping with this goal, on Saturday 25 September, 2010, FAAB VZW organized a workshop on psychotherapy & counselling at the Brede school (Het Keerpunt)in Antwerpen for its member associations and the general public.
The lecture was given by a fellow African, a Kenyan national Ms Rosebell Omondi, a qualified and practising psychotherapist/counsellor based in Brussels.
The highlights of of the contents of her presentation were divided into 3 parts and were as follows:
1.What psychotherapy is and what it involves
(a)What psychotherapy is not!
(b)Brief background history of psychotherapy: where the idea began.
In the second part of her presentation Ms Omondi talked about the status of psychotherapy today :
(a) How culture influences the type of therapy practised in today's world.
(b) How psychotherapy can help Africans.
(c)Circumstances under which people should seek psychotherapy - here she used some case studies to illustrate the importance of seeking counselling whenever confronted with situations people are unable to cope with.
Before moving to the final section, the participants were divided into groups to discuss African methods of therapy /counselling in the past or present.The contributions of the participants varied from country to country. Very interesting!
In the third and final part, she talked about the difference between pastoral counselling and psychotherapy.
After the lecture questions were invited from the participants and there was a general discussion about those questions asked.
At about 5.30pm Mr. Opio of the Ugandan association in Belgium offered the vote of thanks and also presented a token to Miss Rosebell on behalf of Faab vzw in appreciation of her services rendered to the federation. In her acceptance speech Miss Rosebell said she was happy to have many participants at the workshop and volunteered to offer free counselling to the member associations of faab vzw at anytime we may call her.
We rounded off the day with a reception whereby the participants enjoyed some delicious Ghanaian dishes and some drinks. It was a great event with so many participants from the various member associations of faab from Cameroon, Uganda, Kenya, Ghana, Liberia, Swaziland, Nigeria and Belgium.
The participants were so glad that they appealed to the organizers to organize more of such programs in future. At about 8.20pm the curtains were brought down to end the day.
As a final note the FAAB team would once more like to convey its sincere gratitute to the guest speaker Ms Omondi for her generous offer of free counselling to our member associations. We would also like to extend our thanks and appreciation to all our members, partners and friends for attending and participating in the workshop,their presence and contributions meant a lot to us.
We hope to see all of you in numbers , in attendance to our planned future events including the forthcoming theatre play "Night of the Burning Apes" in Gent on the 8, October 2010.
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