During six months of service to a war refugee population in Africa, Lucinda Woodward, associate professor of psychology, was beaten and robbed in a taxi, stricken with malaria and inundated by numerous stories of torture and violence.
And she will be going back this summer.
Woodward and Professor of psychology Kimberly Bays-Brown will lead the Ghanaian Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Cachement study, an immersion experience in Ghana. In the last three weeks of the second 2009 Summer session, Woodward, Bays-Brown and their team of students will conduct field research about mental assessment, comparing incidents of PTSD in adults who have and have not been affected by recent West African conflicts. Students will also get to experience Ghana's culture of with tours and sight-seeing activities.
"Going back each year is exhausting, but I return because I believe the experience is invaluable to our students," Woodward said. "I tell them, 'This trip is about you growing and seeing the world in a different way.'"
Bays-Brown said she recalled seeing positive changes in the students from the previous trip. She said she admired the students self reflection and internal growth.
"They were amazing in their tolerance and good natured response to bucket showers, potties that were holes in the ground and dirt," she said.
On her first trip to Africa, Woodward said she counseled former child soldiers and researched incidents of post-traumatic stress disorder at the Buduburam refugee camp in Ghana for displaced Liberians. Fourteen years of internal conflict in Liberia, from 1989-2003, and current conflicts in nearby Côte d'Ivoire and Sierra Leone have prevented tens of thousands of Liberian refugees from returning to their homes, she said.
According to Worldpress.org, more than 40,000 refugees lived in Buduburam at the peak of the post-war era after 2003.
Woodward maintains contact with many of the former soldiers she counseled, and said there is still significant prejudice against the soldiers trying to return home after conflicts have ended.
Many dramatically improved in their relationships with other people, an issue that deeply affected the lives of Woodward's clients.
"We saw that the things they could change, they did change," she said, "and the biggest of those was their interpersonal relationships."
She said she wants the students who come with her to return home with a broader perspective on life.
"The world isn't always laid out so neatly, isn't always fair," Woodward said. "I want them to understand the world is a large place, they have a role in it, and the ability to make changes, large changes."
Bays-Brown said she wants students to gain insight from an experience she believes may not be available much longer.
"With the rate of progress, I believe the experience of a 3rd world country, as it is now - fluctuating electricity, no common source of water, unpaved roads, fresh food - is a diminishing experience," she said.
Woodward said two youth art students in the Liberian Art School in Buduburam drew greeting cards to be sold to ease student's cost to participate in the program. Students can still sign up for the Summer 2009 trip, Woodward said. Students can buy a package of ten greeting cards for $5 in the Atrium on Dec. 5.
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