AUSTRALIAN HEALING CIRCLE WORK REACHES REFUGEES IN UGANDA

After decades spent developing an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Healing Circle Work process that could be delivered into communities right across Australia, Kultchafi has risen to the challenge of sharing the model with Democratic Republic of Congo war refugees living in a settlement in Uganda, Africa.

Kultchafi is an Australian company with bases in Queensland and Western Australia, whose mission is “Coming together to share culture”.

Kultchafi has been delivering Healing Circles over many years, and presenting at national and international conferences on the exceptional outcomes being achieved

Kultchafi Healing Circle Work is not a therapy but therapeutic outcomes are experienced. Healing Circles are suitable for adults of any culture who have suffered trauma. Participants learn to live life in the moment, recognising and understanding their own spirituality, and gaining the ability to enter the moment to reaffirm themselves.

Kultchafi has repeatedly been asked to provide Healing Circles across Australia. The distances, and time needed to deliver a Healing Circle, were sometimes prohibitive.

We identified a better solution. We identified that we needed to teach community members to deliver their own Kultchafi Healing Circles in their own communities.

The first step was to develop the group session face-to-face Healing Circle work Facilitator training program.

From there, we also put it online to make the training as accessible as possible, no matter how remote the region. Our model blends multimedia, tutorials, activities and Zoom discussions and the online version was launched in 2022.

The training came to the attention of three senior members of the Nakivale Rotaract, the only Rotoract Club in the world based in a refugee camp, who contacted me.

Seraphin Kighoma, Eric Mupika, and Patrick Issa wanted to learn how to facilitate Healing Circles within the camp.

We then had to work out the logistics, based on a lack of technology in the refugee settlement. 

The core challenge of providing training into a Ugandan refugee camp was lack of technology – notably computers, printers and suitable bandwidth. Even power to charge a mobile phone was an issue.

But, by using WhatsApp, the core issues were overcome and the three men are now delivering the Kultchafi Healing Circle process to Congo war refugees.

This was a major opportunity to show that Kultchafi Healing Circle Work can be shared anywhere, no matter how remote. By sharing the cultural knowledge that has shaped Kultchafi Healing Circle Work – ancient knowledge which has been invested in us by Traditional Owners and Elders over decades – we are opening a pathway to improved health and wellbeing in all communities, no matter how remote.

We also have been honoured to open the way for Kultchafi Healing Circle Work to also be delivered on the ground in the refugee settlements of Uganda. I know Healing Circles will have an ever-increasing influence in bringing hope and transformation for individuals and communities. 

•  Kultchafi is 2023 Leading Cultural Healing and Education Provider (APAC Insider Australian Enterprise Awards) and its courses are multi-accredited. Find out more, and enrol in Kultchafi Healing Circle Work Facilitator Training at kultchafi.au