Yazidi Refugee Peer Support Program: London Cross Cultural Learner Centre
Yazidi Refugee Peer Support Program
London Cross Cultural Learner Centre
The Yazidi people are an ethnic and religious minority whose traditional lands straddle the Iraq-Syria border and who have been persecuted for centuries by radical religious fundamentalists in the Middle-East. The intergenerational trauma and decades of violence have forced many Yazidis to leave their homes, becoming refugees. It is estimated that Canada has welcomed over 1200 Yazidis, and their unique culture and belief system combined with severe cases of post-traumatic stress has made it difficult for many to access vital support systems.
The London Cross Cultural Learner Centre (LCCLC) will partner with Canadian Mental Health Association Middlesex, Merrymount Family Support and Crisis Centre, and the Mary J. Wright Research and Education Centre at Western University for the Yazidi Refugee Peer Support Program.
“We are talking about a culture that's been under attack for centuries,” says Valerian Marochko, Executive Director of the LCCLC. “They prefer a more community approach to receiving services, rather than an individualistic approach, and peer support emerged as the best pathway for them to get integrated and served according to their needs.”
Members of the Yazidi community will be trained as peer support leaders to facilitate group counselling sessions, an approach to mental health support that takes culture into account.
“It is not easy to apply a concept or a structure that we normally use to a newly arrived population,” says Marochko.” We have to adapt that service in terms of the people who use it because otherwise they would not access that service. We have to provide equitable access to service to everyone.”
This initiative serves some of the most vulnerable individuals and families living in London and Middlesex in a way that’s meaningful and effective for them. The LCCLC and their partners are doing amazing work both championing the need for adaptive services and demonstrating how effective it is.
