Community resilience in post-conflict societies: experience of a training program in Central African Republic.

INTRODUCTION Norris et al. (2008) define community resilience as a process made of four adaptive capacities: economic development, communication and information, community competence, social capital. Community resilience is typically applied in cases of climate disasters or in post-conflict contexts. While in the first case the impact on social capital is secondary, in the second one, as Somasundaram and Sivayokan (2014) stated, social capital is a specific war target in order to isolate members of communities. For this reason, we propose that the restoration of social capital is the first step to address community resilience in such situations, especially in socio-centric societies (Somasundaram, 2014). As Ager et al. (2005) suggest, to be effective, the construction of community resilience, requires a network within local resources. In line with this, the creation of local Communities of Practice, defined by Wenger (1998) as communities where participants experience mutual engagement, joint enterprise and shared repertoire, represents a result in post-conflict societies. Consistent with literature, the following proposal is about an underway project started in July 2017 and carried out by Sapienza University of Rome, in partnership with University of Rwanda and Université de Bangui, aimed at fostering community resilience in Central African Republic (CAR) where a political and military crisis is occurring since 1996. Because of conditions of extreme violence lots of civilians show PTSD symptoms and other mental disorders with only a few mental health specialists able to intervene. PROJECT AIM Developing a training program aimed at creating a Community of Practice of professionals with psychosocial competences, in order to foster resilience within CAR communities. PARTICIPANTS To easily spread the competences acquired through the training project within the whole target communities, the group of participants includes the following reliable members: psychology students belonging to Université de Bangui; members of local ONGs; proponents of civil and religious communities. TRAINING CONTENT AND METHODOLOGY The training program is provided according to a blended learning methodology. In addition to some specific contents about trauma evaluation and psychosocial intervention, the training is about the development of mutual interdependence within participants in order to give them the chance to directly experience how to create human capital. WORK IN PROGRESS To date, two on-site trainings have been arranged aimed at creating the bases for the construction of a Community of Practice and to transmit some of the aforementioned contents. The development of this process is constantly supervised through some e-learning sessions. BIBLIOGRAPHY Ager, A., Strang, A., Abebe, B. (2005) Conceptualizing community development in war- affected populations: illustrations from Tigray. Community Development journal, Vol 40 No 2, pp. 158-168 Norris, F.H., Stevens, S.P., Pfefferbaum, B., Wyche, K.F., Pfefferbaum, R.L. (2008) Community Resilience as a Metaphor, Theory, Set of Capacities, and Strategy for Disaster Readiness. Community Psychology, 41:127–150 DOI 10.1007/s10464-007-9156-6 Somasundaram, D., Sivayokan, S. (2013) Rebuilding community resilience in a post-war context: developing insight and recommendations - a qualitative study in Northern Sri Lanka. International Journal of Mental Health Systems, 7:3. Somasundaram, D. (2014) Addressing collective trauma: conceptualisations and interventions, Intervention, 43: 60 Volume 12, Supplement 1. Wenger, E.C. (1998) Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity. Cambridge University Pres