Promoting peer support and recovery for landmine survivors, amputees and

other people with disabilities

LSI believes that the support of peers is essential to wellfare and recovery. LSI trains landmine survivors, amputees and other persons with disabilities (PWDs) to offer understanding and support as well as links to health care, jobs and information to the newly victimized. LSI also, through dveloped training curicula, increase survivors' knowledge on ther rights and advocacy skills, helping them realize thier human rights on an equal basis with others in society.

LSI trains survivors to learn how to coach fellow survivors through the five steps of survivorship:

Step 1: Face Facts

The recovery process begins with the survivor’s understanding and acknowledging the traumatic events and their effects, both external and internal. Peer Support Worker learn how to help survivors to face with what happened and go through the necessary transition from the past to the present, where the decision can be made to choose life and move on.

Step 2: Choose Life

The choices most survivors face during recovery vary between active and passive, destructive and constructive. The survivor must also go through some self-exploration to better understand what he or she will need to do to recover from injuries, improve social relationships, return to work, and find a new meaning in life. Peer Support Workers learn how to work through complex problems in the early stages of the peer support relationship.

Step 3: Reach Out

The peer support relationship depends on trust, which requires specific skills to develop and maintain. Peer Support Workers learn techniques and methods for encouraging survivors to express their thoughts and feelings, and ways that a can respond effectively to show that he or she is listening and understanding.

Step 4: Get Moving

Once a survivor has faced reality, decided to live constructively, and established a trusting relationship with a peer, it is essential to develop a plan of action. The survivor must be empowered to take charge of his or her own life. Peer Support Workers learn how to assess a survivor’s needs, to promote a survivor’s self-confidence and autonomy, to help him or her solve problems and to manage stress.

Step 5: Give Back

Once recovery is well under way we encourage survivors to think about giving back to their community, to others who may need support and assistance, and especially other survivors like themselves. We hope to stimulate the phenomenon of Posttraumatic Growth, which occurs in some individuals following a traumatic experience and can lead to considerable personal and spiritual development.