While providing psychosocial first aid support to victims of the 8th October earthquake, Rozan realized that a great deal more needed to be done for the victims of this traumatic event. As a result, Rozan expanded its psychosocial first aid initiative into Project Umeed: an intensive, six-month long program designed to train, supervise, and support relief workers working in camps in the northern areas of Pakistan.

Umeed was a joint project of the Pakistan Red Crescent Society (PRCS) and the International Federation of the Red Cross (IFRC) with professional support from Rozan. The project aimed to empower the affected communities of the NWFP by facilitating their psychosocial recovery, well-being, and rehabilitation.

Since the completion of the project in May 2006, psychosocial support activities for earthquake survivors, with an additional focus on gender perspectives, have been absorbed into Rozan's Zeest program. Details of that are available on the Zeest program page.

Objectives

The two major objectives of Umeed were:

1. To create fora within the affected communities aimed at providing psychosocial support and facilitating psychosocial rehabilitation through:

• Psychosocial education on disasters, their effects on individuals and communities
• Building survivors' self-esteem and self-confidence
• Providing psychosocial first aid and peer support
• Developing coping skills in adults and children, through group sessions
• Mobilizing communities towards self-help, independence and participatory action
• Capacity-building of community

2. To build the capacity of other organizational staff/volunteers (relief workers, health professionals, field workers, teachers, etc) in managing their own stress and providing psychosocial support.

Relief Camp Activities

Rozan staff and Rozan-trained Pakistan Red Crescent Society (PRCS) staff conducted a range of activities in the following relief camps:

• Maira Tent Village (and surrounding areas of Battgram)
• Havalian Tent Village (and Balakot)
• Garhi Habibullah Tent Village (and surrounding areas)
• H-11 Tent Village , Islamabad

The various activities conducted included the following:

A) Social activities

• Entertainment events
• Social gatherings
• Sports activities
• Skill development sessions

B) Psychosocial education group sessions

• One-off sessions for the community on:
• Disasters and their effects
• Coping with disasters and rehabilitation
• Children's and adolescents' psychosocial education and coping groups: a five session group work programme on:
• Feelings after disaster
• Understanding and dealing with difficult feelings after a disaster
• Self esteem
• Safety
• Ways of coping
• A three session group work programme for parents on:
• Children's coping groups -- what to expect
• Children's reactions to disasters
• Ways of helping children cope

Professional Training Workshops

Additionally, Umeed conducted two kinds of professional-level workshops. These included:

1. Orientations for volunteers (in the form of a 5 hour long session) to equip them to provide basic level psychosocial first aid support to children and women in shelters and camps around Islamabad .

2. Psychosocial support training workshops for the staff and volunteers (i.e. relief workers, community/field workers, nurses, teachers, etc.) of various other organizations. These workshops, which ran from 1-5 days, depending on the needs identified, covered:

• Sensitivity to issues and needs of affected communities
• Psychosocial first aid
• Psychosocial support interventions
• Stress management for staff/volunteers (relief workers, field staff, medical staff, teachers, etc.)
• Referral identification for individuals requiring more intensive support

A total of 38 trainings have been conducted since the launch of the project and 835 professionals have been trained.

Material Development

Rozan developed a range of materials for its relief activities:

• Two detailed training manuals for use with the affected community by the PRCS psychosocial support field officers. PRCS field officers were then trained on how to use the manuals and the modules in it. The first manual contained 8 modules and the second manual contained 5 modules. The second manual is currently being run by PRCS field officers in the community.
• Pictorial, safety and feelings cards, special boxes and puppets as well as flyers and brochures to be used by PRCS field officers in the psychosocial support educational groups with adults and children.
• Educational material for use in children's psychosocial support educational group.
• A 'Checklist to Facilitate Gender Sensitivity of Relief and Reconstruction Efforts for Survivors of the Earthquake in Pakistan ' was developed in collaboration with UNFPA.