Healing and Prayer
Many of our beneficiaries lived with unprocessed trauma brought about by adverse childhood experiences and difficult adulthood – especially living under Apartheid. NOAH’s psycho-social approach focuses on a collective healing modality with individual counselling should the need to be evident, coupled with referrals to other organisations and institutions.
The Safe Circle approach aims to increase the capacity of the NOAH community to reduce adversity. NOAH beneficiaries learn to incorporate new ways of being with self and others that change how people experience and deal with the world. Understanding how this happens, requires knowledge of the brain, adversity, trauma responses and how healing can take place, individually and communally.
NOAH retains the services of two trained counsellors in Woodstock, Khayelitsha and Athlone. Based on the safe circles approach, they provide conflict resolution skills for those living in community and one-on-one support to members struggling with various aspects of their lives. A wonderful by-product has been the improvement in the way internal house conflict has been better managed and resolved.
Gender-based violence and abuse prevails and through the individual counselling service those cases have been swiftly referred and addressed.
This has been an amazing blessing and we have seen lives changed for the good as they have been given new and helpful skills to make good choices and live their lives to the full. The next step will be to embark on a lay counsellor programme where NOAH residents will be trained to offer this support to others in their communities.
Another aspect of Healing is spirituality. For this reason, a prayer group is led by our residents and held every morning. Everyone is welcome, and a safe and spiritual space is provided for all to share, reflect and offer up their prayer requests. It sets the tone for the day and brings a sense of peace and purpose to all those who attend.
As a result of this approach, 100% of all our members reported an awareness of their own and others’ emotions and 100% reported an awareness of their own needs in a 2023 assessment.
