Lending a helping hand

Mary Justine Todd from Iowa, United States, grew up on the banks of Mississippi River.

Coming from a well-educated family, Mary- Justine graduated with three Bachelor’s degrees in Theatre, French and International Affairs.

She has a Master’s degree in International Affairs from University of Iowa as well as a Master’s Degree in International Public Health from New York University.

Both the degrees focused mainly on women refugees, violence against women and women’s protection in developing countries.

She worked around the world from USA to various countries in Africa. She worked in refugee camps and also worked for NGO’s such as International Rescue Committee and the US Refugee Programme.

She was also the chair of the board and a certified NY State Crisis Counsellor, for Columbia University Hospital’s crisis response programme.

She also provides yoga therapy. After practicing yoga for about 8 years, and studying yoga in NYC, China and India, she spent a month at an intensive yoga ashram in the Himalaya Mountains in Nepal and then became a certified teacher.

This experience helped her integrate yoga teaching in crisis c o u n s e l l i n g work she does.

Birth of WCCI

Mary Justine moved to Bahrain to join her husband and then she decided to bring her work and experience to build a programme that would help people.

She said, “I knew I had to do something here that would be related to what I did all these years and something that would feel valuable. After having spent nearly 10 years working for International NGOs, I knew how humanitarian programming worked and I thought I would give it a try.”

“I looked around Bahrain, I spoke to people. Then I realized that although Bahrain has many wonderful programmes for women, they did not have one specific type of programming with which I was familiar. So I said, “Let’s start it!” And that’s what we did.”

And that’s how WCCI was born. WCCI seeks to help victims of domestic and sexual violence by providing and implementing violence crisis response programmes, training services and counselling services.

Crisis counselling offers care and support for women victims of domestic and sexual abuse during the actual moment of the crisis. Crisis counsellors give emotional support and logistic support to the victims.

“For 10 years I had done similar work for other organizations. But here, I got the amazing opportunity to start my own organization. In an environment of care and compassion for women, Bahrain is by far and away, a leader in the region.

The work of the Supreme Council, The Shura Council, the government as a whole, as well as many charity groups and NGOs lead the way for WCCI to offer crisiscounseling services to survivors of violence, ” she added.

With WCCI’s strive to implement its programmes and services in the country, Salmaniya Hospital successfully accepted their programmes into their emergency rooms. Last November, the WCCI certified 60 women’s crisis advocates who completed rigorous 40-hour training course to become certified crisis advocates.

 Profound passion to help

Mary-Justine developed a passion to help the ones in need after having an intensive study in International Affairs and on-hands work experience in several countries in Africa. She said, “I think I always had the passion to help others. However, the knowledge of how to actually do something about it was a slow process of discovery.” 

“The stories of the victims’ pain and suffering simply break my heart. And I couldn’t live my life knowing that this type of pain and injustice exists and do nothing about it.”

“I spent half of a year doing research for my first Master’s living in the refugee communities of Tanzania, on the borders of Rwanda and Burundi. This gave me a profound understanding of the suffering and poverty that so many people face. Then I spent several years posted in Liberia, Ghana and Sierra Leone in West Africa, working with refugees, internally displaced people and women.This was only 5 years after the brutal 15 year civil war in Liberia and Sierra Leone had ended and the countries were in shambles.

This only solidified my commitment to help people who suffer, specifically women.

” “I think the most important message I can give other humanitarians would be in the form of a quote by Mrs. Rosa Park, the African American civil rights icon: “If you know what you’re doing is right, don’t ever be scared”. 

Future plans of WCCI

WCCI is initiating the first-ever rape and violence crisis response programme in the entire region, at Salmaniya hospital, on January 1st, 2016. She said, “Right now, we are working around the clock to ensure that everything is in place. We have a 24hour/7day a week on-call coverage schedule and are completing the orientation sessions with more than 400 hospital staff.”

“From here, I want to expand the programme. Hospitals can either implement the full-scale crisis response programme, or they can simply start by bring WCCI in to train their staff on working with victims of domestic/ sexual violence. WCCI seeks to bring about a more compassionate and caring environment for women who have suffered from abuse.

For more information about the programme, or how you can be involved, log on to t www.womenscci. org or follow WCCI on their social media outlets.

Photo Caption: Mary-Justine (Left) with a participant