Fun and Games

Matt Streng conducts a Moving Forward training. Photo: Maya Alexandri for Mercy Corps

by Maya Alexandri

On Saturday and Sunday, June 14-15, Mercy Corps conducted a two-day Moving Forward master training. The purpose of this master training is to train people who will in turn teach the methodology to caregivers in local communities who work directly with traumatized children.

Matt, Mercy Corps' Program Officer for Health, Youth and Sports, led this master training at Sichuan University. He said that he initially was unsure of how receptive his students would be to the Moving Forward methodology. "Some people take the attitude, ‘No, I'm not going to do that,' when you ask them to get up and play games. But the group just jumped right in."

During a break on Sunday, I spoke with some of the more than 60 psychologists, elementary-, middle- and high-school teachers, as well as vocational school teachers, who were participating in the master training. As Matt had suggested, their enthusiasm was unbridled.

"What do you think of the training?" I asked.

"The Moving Forward program is very useful," said one psychology teacher. "In China, our educational approach is to require things of the children. But the Moving Forward program asks, from the children's perspective, what do they want? That's best."

Another participant, a vocational school teacher with more than 20 years of teaching experience, said that he was particularly impressed with Matt's teaching style. "The Moving Forward master training is not like a typical Chinese class," he explained. "The training participants are very active, they're not at all passive. That's because Matt pays attention to all the participants and has an open teaching style that encourages active participation. The combination of activities with ideas in the Moving Forward program is also extremely effective."

I asked a group of teachers — elementary- and middle-school, as well as college level — how they would use the Moving Forward methodology to assist youth in the quake zone. "A really good aspect of the Moving Forward program is that it can be used to help all kids, in regular schools and in the devastated areas," replied one of the teachers.

"But it's good for children who have been affected by the earthquake because language cannot always express feelings and ideas," added another teacher. "The Moving Forward activities can help the children express themselves."

I was interested in this teacher's response because psychological counseling is relatively new in China, and mental illness still carries a heavy stigma. Although the Chinese government, from the outset of earthquake recovery efforts, has recognized the need for and supported the provision of mental health services to populations effected by the earthquake, talk therapy lacks an established history and institutional framework in China.

I'd been wondering if quake-affected people might resist talk therapy techniques because such methodologies were unfamiliar. "Do you think Moving Forward is appropriate for Chinese culture?" I asked.

The teachers nodded their heads in agreement. "Chinese children like cooperative games," said one.

"It's also good that the Moving Forward program is appropriate both for boys and girls," added another.

"We've already had success with sports and games activities at the displaced persons' camp," said a teacher who works at a middle school that's located in one such camp. "We thought the kids wouldn't be interested in games because they're too old, but they loved them."

Just then, Matt called an end to the break and began the next session of the training with a game called "Head Hands." The game requires people to stand in a circle, with a person in the center, holding a ball. The center person then throws the ball to each person in the circle in turn, saying "head" or "hands." Depending on the command, the person in the circle either "heads" the ball back to the center person or catches it and tosses it back.

Proving that even adults aren't too old to love sports and games activities, the training participants launched into the game with enthusiastic smiles and gleeful cheers.

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