Dr Lenin calls for helping kids traumatised by conflict
Source: Chronicle News Service
Imphal, August 10 2023:
Stressing the urgent need for guiding and rectifying the thought process of children, who have been displaced by the on-going conflict and requesting to be provided with weapons; RIMS Psychiatry Department Professor RK Lenin expressed serious concern that any delay in guiding these children onto the right direction could have disastrous consequences.
A one-day workshop on 'Approach to Child and Adolescent during conflict situation' was organised by RIMS Psychiatry Department at its Dr Kamal Hall on Wednesday.
Speaking on the occasion, Dr Lenin said that young children and adolescents, who have been affected and displaced by the conflict, are deeply traumatised and left with a sense of forlorn with regard to their future.
While the young kids played together in the relief camps during the day, at night they are asking their parents/guardians when they can return to their homes.
The adults have no answer to give to the children.
The older kids, however, cannot hide their sad and discontented expressions on their faces.
The dissatisfaction is so great that they have given up studying and are instead requesting for weapons so that they vent their emotions.
This is a matter of serious concern because such emotions are not what they are supposed to have at their age.
Thus, there is an urgent need to guide the children onto the right path or else they will all wither away before they can bloom, he stated.
He Continued that the displaced adults are also affected but they have the mental strength and will to face these emotions.
But the kids are like wet clay.
If no measures are taken up in time, the future generations would have a difficult time in overcoming any hurdle.
Thus, the department has been visiting relief camps and trying to help the future pillars as much as possible, he conveyed.
Dr Lenin then said that the prevailing violence in the state is the first of its kind and thus, there is no training manual available to help the children.
Nonetheless, psychiatrists, psychologists and volunteers are trying to learn as they can from experts while visiting relief camps.
The workshop was thus organised to facilitate this learning experience, he said, while adding that the service to be provided to the children in relief camps will be of highest quality.
NIMHANS Department of Child Psychiatry's former professor & head and SAMBAD advisor Dr Shekhar Seshadri attended the workshop as resource person.
RIMS director professor G Sunil Kumar Sharma, head of Psychiatry Department Dr S Gojendra and SAMBAD technical expert Sheela were also present at the inaugural function of the workshop.