Success Stories
Monday, 19 September 2016 08:18

Wael – Bethlehem District

On his way out of school which lies adjacent to the Segregation Wall, Wael (14.5 years old boy) was arrested by the Israeli military. He was taken ina military jeep and was subject to physical as well as psychological abuse. He was accused of throwing stones and got detained for two months, during which he attended five trials at an Israeli court. Luckily, Wael had a lawyer and at the fifth trial was declared innocent and released with a fine of 2,000 shekels. After Wael returned home he had trouble sleeping, eating, studying, and interacting with his family.

The YMCA’s counselor visited him and made a thorough assessment of his psychosocial status. Wael suffered from PTSD syndromes, the images of soldiers arresting him, the time he spent in the military vehicle, and the inhuman treatment he received during his imprisonment haunted his mind. Soon he started receiving counseling sessions on a regular basis using the EMDR technique, which is relatively speaking one of the latest and most effective techniques used in counseling.His counselor describes that “they just didn’t realize… they didn’t see that he was fourteen years old and needed to be treated better.”

Working with Wael came in parallel with working with his family and his teachers aiming at facilitating the process of reintegrating him into the society. Wael was referred to remedial education classes for two months to help him catch up with his studiesand he was able to follow-up very well with his peers at school.

After five months of close follow up by the YMCA team, Wael was able to recover; he could sleep calmly through the night, no more horrible scenes were dominating his mind, his relationship with his family improved and he did very well at school. His biggest motivation is to succeed in the Tawjihi (General Secondary Certificate) exam and attend university to study medicine and become a doctor. The counselor continues to check on Wael and makes sure that he is doing well both at school and at home. He explains “Wael looks ambitiously towards his future. He improved his relations a lot and developed his self-esteem”.

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