Most people in Malaita lived stressful and traumatic lives, a survey has found.
The High Level Stress and Trauma Self-Assessment Survey was carried out by the Commission on Justice, Reconciliation and Peace of the Anglican Church of Melanesia in Malaita.
It focused on the problems that affect the physical, mental, behavioural, emotional and spirituality of individuals as a result of stress and trauma from manmade and natural disasters and the people’s daily struggle to make ends meet.
The Anglican Diocese of Malaita’s peace officer Leslie Filiomea said the survey involved 557 people in various walks of life, including those who are in prison, hospitals, schools, government ministries, religious institutions and communities in and around Auki, Malaita Province.
He said out of the 557 people who did the self-assessment test, 227 people or 41% were at a high stress and trauma Level,167 People or 33% experience medium stress level and 183 people or 30% with little stress or become normal.
“The percentages shown above means that most communities involved in the self-assessment survey were not healthy, safe and conducive: they are in a state of negative peace,” Filiomea said.
“There are increasing number of depressed communities as was seen in the survey, ones that succumb to helplessness and hopelessness,” he added.
“They find it hard to maintain joy and vitality. Their dispirited mood limits their energy and imaginations, they very resource they need to revitalize themselves. And this increases the level of stress among the members of these communities.
“It also means that at the surface everything seems fine but below the surface are lot of unresolved and outstanding issues and problems, unmet needs and deeper hurts and wounds or trauma still exist in most people’s mind and one day it will trigger into negative behaviours, conflict and violence once these people are not treated with proper counselling and training,” Filiomea said.
He added that this kind of survey is helpful because it identified people who are affected with high level stress and trauma and by this they can be sent to the appropriate organisations or groups for training and healing rather than spending money on training for people who are not sick and those who don’t need it.
“I call on those who are involving in peace building and trauma healing programmes to help us advance this kind of survey especially in Honiara and other provinces to deal with the outstanding wounds of our people who may still have experienced traumatic experiences as a result of the ethnic crisis and other natural disasters the nation had gone through over the years.”
By WILLIAM EKOTANI
in Auki
