Narinya - the circle of healing

In a previous post this excellent program "Narinya", developed by Aboriginal people for Aboriginal survivors of childhood sexual assault, was mentioned as being co-facilitated by the co-founders. The Aboriginal Mental Health worker of the Bowral Mental Health Service, in collaboration with an Elder of the Aboriginal community in the Shoalhaven, were part of the organising group who arranged the emotionally uplifting "Walk Against Sexual Violence" from Nowra to Wollongong in 2007.Both co-facilitators heard many stories during that walk of hidden pain and distress from the women who joined in the march. From that amalgam of hardship and suffering came the realisation that there needed to be some program that would allow the affected women the opportunity to break the bonds that had for so long made them feel crushed and burdened by a sense of guilt not of their making.The two co-facilitators then began to explore whether such a program existed which in turn could be adapted for Aboriginal women. Not finding one with the cultural and spiritual sensitivity suited for the women, they set about constructing one that embodied the elements of healing that were meaningful and powerful for the Aboriginal people.Thus began the development and use of "Narinya: the circle of healing". The mental health worker, an accomplished artist of Aboriginal art devised unique drawings of fish - each one different from another. In the course of the program each woman participating would select her own unique fish drawing, paint it so that it embodied their spirit, use it to express their own uniqueness, and take it with them at the end of the program as a reminder of the path that they had travelled to heal themselves.The co-facilitators were, over the course of the program, able to engage the whole group in encouraging each of the women to, in turn, visualise the burden they had mistakenly imposed on themselves from accepting guilt for the assaults that others had done to them, and then to symbolically and emotionally unburden themselves of that guilt.For the co-facilitators the outcome of that pilot program was so powerful and fulfilling to them and the women participating, that both knew that they had found the key to assist many others suffering in silence over many years as victims of sexual assaults.Now the program has been run several times and the word has got about through yarning in the communities. Aboriginal people from around Australia are now seeking to have the program conducted in their own communities. Plans are being made to train others in the program so that the circle of healing can be made available to many more. Not only are the women of the community seeking the solace of the Narinya program. Men also have identified themselves as being victims of childhood sexual abuse. The facilitators have already conducted a program for Aboriginal men with the same level of success, as for the women, for the male participants in the program.Such has been the acceptance and the success of the Narinya program that earlier this year the two facilitators were invited to present their program to a conference of the Maori people in New Zealand, proving that this circle of healing is not just useful to indigenous people in Australia but useful to those in other nations as well.In a fitting tribute to both facilitators they were awarded a prize for their Narinya program by the University of Technology (Sydney) in 2008.