Tadhamun event

Iraqis: Living With Trauma in a War Zone - Tue 12 Sep 2017 @6:15PM

Psychological trauma runs deep for communities that have survived or continue to live under war and occupation. These invisible wounds are particularly prevalent among children, whose educational development and growth are disrupted by relentless violence. Tadhamun’s (Iraqi Women Solidarity) event invites expert guests and health practitioners to discuss the multiple layers of war trauma which Iraqi population, particularly children, have been subjected to, for many decades now and how to cope with it.

Panel one -         Chair: Ayça Çubukçu 

6.30 - 7.00          "The Psychiatric/ Psychological Consequences of War and Post Traumatic Stress disorder"   - 

   Dr Elham Aldouri 

7.00 - 7.10           "Impact of war on displaced Iraqis" - Short film produced & introduced by Nazli Tarzi 

7.10 - 7.30           "The Psychological Impact of War and Displacement on Children" - Joanne Baker.

7.30 - 7.50           Q & A 

7.50 - 8.00           ---------------- Break ----------------

Panel two -          Chair:  Rachel Beckles Willson

8.00 - 8.20           "After slavery" - Rachel Beckles Willson

8.20 - 8.40           "Living with War: Memories of a Lifetime" - Nadia Fayidh Mohammed

8.40 - 8.50            Children & wives of “Islamic state” ...  what fate? - Haifa Zangana 

8.50 - 9.00            Q & A

·                 Date: Tuesday 12th Sept. 2017 at 6:15 for 6:30 – 9:00PM

·                 Address: Conway Hall, 25 Red Lion Square, London WC1R 4RL   MAP

·                 All Welcome   -    الدعوة عامة

Tadhamun (solidarity) is an Iraqi women organization, encompasses many organisations and individuals standing by Iraqi women's struggle for equal citizenship across ethnicities and religions, for human rights and gender equality.

Participants:

v Ayça Çubukçu - Assistant Professor in Human Rights \ Department of Sociology \ Centre for the Study of Human Rights, London School of Economics and Political Science.

v Dr Elham al Douri - MBChB, DPM, DipPsych, FRCPsych Consultant Psychiatrist & Specialist Advisor to the Care Quality Commission, Department of Health, UK.

Dr Aldouri graduated in medicine from Mosul Medical School, Mosul University, IRAQ. She came to the UK in 1980 to do postgraduate training and specialising in Psychiatry. She was trained at reputable institutions and hospitals in the UK including the Institute of Psychiatry, the Bethlem Royal and the Maudsley Hospitals. She has worked as a consultant psychiatrist specialising in adult psychiatry since 1991 in both the NHS and the private sector. She has a special interest and expertise in the psychological effects of trauma including that arising from war, conflict, natural disastrous and other traumatic events. In addition to her clinical responsibilities, she has held key managerial and teaching positions as clinical and medical director and senior examiner for the MRCPsych degree at the Royal College of Psychiatrists. She is also a senior specialist advisor to the CQC, department of health in the UK.

v Nazli Tarzi - is an independent multi-platform journalist and researcher with a particular interest in Iraqi affairs — past and present — and state-society relations in the wider Middle East. After two years in broadcast journalism, Nazli currently writes for a wide range of publications including Middle East Monitor, The New Arab, Middle East Eye and Al Jazeera, among others.

"Impact of war on displaced Iraqis": Decades of relentless warfare in Iraq, have left no child unaffected or unharmed. The impact of such exposure on children, despite its enormous weight, is not always visible. Emotional scars run deep and children as young as three, exhibit post-traumatic stress symptoms. Trauma is carried even by those lucky enough to have survived air raids and shelling episodes. Every family has mourned the death of its loved ones and those still missing. While resilience is often a natural response to war, it does not mask the traumatic memories that children learn to suppress. This film takes a look at how political violence and traumatic events shape the lives of Iraq's children of war.

v Joanne Baker - Human Rights activist and Coordinator of Child Victims of War. Co-author of 'Uranium in Iraq: the toxic legacy of the Iraq wars'.

v Rachel Beckles Willson - is a musician and writer and currently Professor of Music at Royal Holloway, University of London. She has published widely on the cultural politics of music (including two books for Cambridge University Press: Orientalism and Musical Mission: Palestine and the West (2013) and Ligeti, Kurtag, and Hungarian Music during the Cold War Cambridge UP, 2007). Recently her work both as a performer and researcher has focused on the oud (the oriental lute) - examples of which can be found at www.oudmigrations.com Since her time in Palestine Rachel has had a particular interest in refugees, and has worked as a volunteer with immigrant minors for some years.

"After Slavery": In this talk I discuss women and female minors who have recently escaped the global sex market. Having reported their traffickers to the police they benefit from Italy’s protection system for asylum seekers and are housed in immigrant reception centres throughout the country. I have recently begun working as a volunteer in such centres in Sicily, using my specialist skill, music, in language lessons and workshops. I will present my work in the broader context of music’s benefits (and dangers) in situations of trauma and post-trauma, with reference to my earlier activities in both London and Ramallah.

v Nadia Fayidh Mohammed - researcher, translator and writer from Iraq. She completed her education in Baghdad, Iraq. After completing her postgraduate degree in 2003, she taught English literature in University of Mustansiriyah till 2015, when she joined King's College London as CARA post-doctorate fellow of English till 2017. She has several academic publications on English and American poets like Philip Larkin, Seamus Heaney, Anne Sexton and Lisa Suhair Majaj. She participated in several poetry translation projects with the University of Iowa, among them were Whitman's Song of Myself and Lanterns of Hope. Her poetry is published in Poetry Quarterly, Poetry & Prose, Acumen and Vision International. She is member of Exiled Writer Ink based in London.

"Living with War: Memories of a Lifetime" - it is a mixture of personal account of war memories as well as an account of how war affected our social lives and conducts.

v Haifa Zangana - Writer and consultant at UN Economic and Social Commission for West Asia (ESCWA). Author of "Dreaming of Baghdad" and "City of widows", among many others. Co-author of "Torturer in the mirror" Ramsey Clark. "Party for Thaera, Palestinian women writing life" is her latest book.