Developing a counseling framework to respond to the needs of Bandhu Social Welfare Society’s program
intervention: enhancing the capacity of counselors
2002
Introduction
This series of workshop is the beginning of building a strong counseling component within Bandhu Social Welfare Society’s existing structure.
Counseling has emerged as one of the most imminent need of Bandhu’s work. Bandhu’s response to this need has been complementary. The willingness to understand the importance of counseling in its work distinguishes Bandhu from other organizations working on similar issues in the region.
Male to male sex
(MMS) is a behavior that has been socially confined in the realm of abnormality
from time unknown. Men who feel
attracted to other men have always faced strong condemnation from the society,
and if still finding the courage to stand up for what they believe in have been
shunned by families and their social environment, thus left feeling guilty and
confused.
Generally, the
reflective and brainstorming sessions in the workshops reveal that guilt in
such cases encapsulate numerous issues around identity, socialization
processes, family structure and sexual & mental abuse. Simultaneously, at the back of the mind
guilt is compounded by the fear of expulsion from ones existing environment.
Counseling
becomes essential in all such
interventions and programs where mental, physical and sexual health are being
compromised because of feeling of guilt, shame and mental confusion.
When talking about
sexual health, the ever looming threat of Acquired Immuno Deficiency (AIDS)
cannot be ignored. High risk behaviors
such as unprotected anal or vaginal sex, takes the lead in risk of contracting
HIV.
Thus, no male sexual
health program can be complete without a thoughtful component of counseling
built into it. It is with counseling
that marginalized and ignored populations may start caring about their bodies
and health i.e. physical, sexual and mental.
The effort to
coordinate a well strategized counseling program within Bandhu’s existing and
expanding framework is being made with a hope that promotion of male sexual
health and HIV/AIDS prevention would be holistic.
The series of workshops were conducted in the following order:
March-April 2001
Dhaka
Sylhet
Chittagong
Feb 2002
Sylhet
Chittagong
Dhaka
Purpose:
To develop a
counseling framework that responds to the needs of BSWS’ program intervention
and enhance capacity of counselors working at different projects of BSWS.
Objectives:
Following were the objectives of this series of workshop:
·
To identify the long
term needs of BSWS’ counseling intervention using workshop framework at each of
its project office
·
To clarify the needs
through role-plays, exercises and brainstorming sessions, with a focus upon
enhancement of counseling skills of workshop participants
·
To develop a strategy
of addressing these needs more comprehensively and holistically
·
To provide the
feedback to BSWS head office and mutually develop a framework for future
discourse
Methodology:
Mr. Aris BSWS (Dhaka office)
Mr. Rana BSWS (Chittagong office)
Ms. Naheed Khilji Vision Lahore,
Pakistan
Mr. Tahir Khilji Vision Lahore,
Pakistan
March, 2001
Introduction:
Norm Setting through Experience Sharing:
Participants agreed on following norms through reflecting on the necessity of each norm and how would they personally feel if any of these norms were violated in reference to their daily interactions with other people.
Generally the feelings
ranged from frustration, anger to lack of willingness to participate and to
boredom. Finally following were the
norms agreed upon by the group:
Norms:
·
Listening to and
respecting other person’s point of view
·
Not saying things
that would hurt others
·
No foul language
·
No smoking inside the
room
·
No pan chewing inside
the room
·
Patience
·
No cross talking and
side talking
·
Raise hands before
speaking and speaking at ones own turn
·
To be tolerant
towards each other
At the end,
participants linked some of the above norms to their outreach work and
counseling in a discussion. They
reflected upon these norms within the framework of their work.
Expectations:
Following were the expectations of participants from the
workshop:
·
I will learn
counseling from this workshop
·
This workshop will
teach me how to interact with people at the project site
·
The workshop will
assist us to do our outreach work effectively
·
The workshop will
develop counseling skills in us
·
We will learn about
HIV post-test and pre-test counseling from this workshop
·
We will learn about
male to male sex and how Islam perceives it from this workshop
·
We will find out how
counseling can help our work in the field and in the office
·
I expect to know
about psycho sexual issues from this workshop
Following this the
facilitator discussed the expectations that were part of this workshop and
others that formed content for a separate workshop.
Identity Formation
& Dealing with Self:
Participants were asked to enact some of those childhood memories that they cherished most. In addition to this they were also asked to think about what they liked about the entire memory and something that they did not like about this specific childhood happiness.
After different
memories were acted out, a discussion was initiated around some of the things
that were generally liked during childhood and they were as follows:
What I liked!
·
I loved the wedding
because I was able to dance my heart out
·
It gave me an
opportunity to dance and sing
·
It was nice to play
like that with my peers
·
Nice to play freely
with my friends
·
I enjoyed sitting
with my mother in the kitchen
·
It was nice when my
sister and I played with dolls
·
I liked it when my
mother sometimes dressed me in a frock
·
Going out and playing
was fun
·
I liked doing the household
chores such as washing dishes and cleaning the house
·
I liked the school
and my friends there who were both boys and girls
What did I not like!
·
It is not linked to
any specific incidence but what I did not like in my childhood was when I was
called Chaka, or Maghya
·
I did not like when
boys forced themselves on me
·
I did not like some
of the boys in the school, who would always tease me calling me half man and
half woman
·
It was embarrassing
for me when I was called a Chaka in front of my sisters one day on the street
·
I felt bad one day
when I was discovered by my brother wearing my mother’s sari
Facilitator asked
participants to reflect on their feelings linked to situations that they did
not like. Following were some of the
responses:
·
Sad
·
Terrible
·
Awful
·
Bad
·
Embarrassed
·
Ashamed
·
Guilty
·
Sad
·
Sad
·
Embarrassed
·
Sad
·
Bad
·
Bad
·
Embarrassed
Feelings in connection with certain incidence in life were discussed in the group. Participants shared some more memories that triggered certain feelings. Facilitator asked them to also discuss some of the ways they used to express their feelings. Following were some of the ways that the feelings were generally expressed:
Expressions:
·
I cried
·
I cried
·
I hid myself behind a
tree till my parents found me
·
I was scared and
started crying
·
I did not know what
to do. I guess I was confused
·
Scared and started
crying out of fear
·
Cried
·
Yelled back
·
Cursed the boys
Some of the responses
to this question were as follows:
At this point the
facilitator linked the feelings after expressing oneself to the feelings
before expressing oneself and reflected upon people’s experience to
emphasize the importance of expressing oneself. Connected to this the facilitator asked participants to
brainstorm and make a list of things that would help them in expressing
themselves in front of another person.
Following were some
of the responses of participants:
·
Person sitting in
front of me should be a friend
·
I would not talk with
another person till I trust him completely
·
I can only express
myself in front of another person if I know him completely
·
I will only talk to
another person about my problem/issue if the other person is trustworthy
and willing to listen and advise me
·
I will only trust
the person with my feelings if I know that the person will not tell anyone
else and will not joke about me with others
·
I think I will not
express myself in front of another person because I would have to trust the
person and also the person should be a friend. Since all my friends are kothis and kothis
have big mouths. They can never
keep anything inside they discuss it with other kothis. They use such information for gossiping.
·
I have to trust
a person to express myself. That
person should not discuss my problems with other people and should listen
carefully so that he can help me in solving the problems otherwise why
would I go to anyone.
·
I will only talk to a non kothi friend as kothis have a
reputation of gossiping and before one knows the matter becomes public and
that is humiliating
The facilitator
suggested the group to pick out words from their responses that would become
characteristics of a person that they would want to talk to or in front of whom
they would want to freely express themselves.
Following was the list of some of those words:
List of words:
·
Trustworthy
·
Friend
·
Someone who maintains confidentiality
·
Friend and confidante
·
Willing to listen
·
Someone who does not gossip
·
Someone who could advise
·
Listen to my problem carefully meaning a good listener
·
Does not make a joke of my problems
AFTERNOON SESSION:
Participants were
asked to reflect upon the list of words that they had developed before
lunch. The facilitator asked them to
analyze the list from the perspective of an outreach worker and pick out words
that they felt described them well in their outreach work.
·
I do try to
create a friendly atmosphere when I am talking to people in my outreach
work
·
I take the
client separate from the group and try to build friendship before telling
him about Bandhu and our work
·
I do my best
to be friendly with the client. Generally
I would behave like a Kothi and that would encourage the client to talk
·
Trust is built immediately when I behave like a
kothi because then the client opens up without any hesitation.
·
I do agree
that we kothis have a big mouth and we do generally gossip but I never
do that in front of my clients.
·
I joke with
my clients and that helps in creating trust between us. Sometimes I jokingly tell them that I
will help them find a nice panthi.
All this helps in trust building and brining us closer to our clients.
·
If I behave
like a kothi, our work becomes a lot easier. Generally the Kothi clients immediately get interested and
start sharing their problems with us.
At this point the
facilitator described that the group was not only looking at the words that
were applicable upon them as outreach workers but also were discussing
different strategies that they used in their work and it was essential that
these strategies should be reflected upon before proceeding any further. Participants agreed to the suggestion.
The facilitator
asked the group to describe the objectives of BSWS. Following were some of the responses:
·
BSWS works for
prevention of HIV/AIDS. It provides
information to MSM on HIV/AIDS prevention
·
BSWS is a male
sexual health project that addresses the sexual health issue of men who have
sex with men
·
BSWS works to
protect kothis and their panthis from HIV/AIDS
·
BSWS provides
counseling services to men who have sex with men
·
BSWS is an
organization that works for male sexual health and their protection from
HIV/AIDS
·
BSWS is an
organization that provides counseling and medical services to kothis in
addition to the information on HIV/AIDS prevention
·
BSWS is a male
sexual health project and it provides services such as medical and counseling
Summing it up the
facilitator made two columns and asked the group to say yes or no to the
services that the facilitator was going to name.
Services Yes No
Medical assistance x -
Social meetings x -
Meetings for socializing with Panthis* - x
Meetings for getting Panthis - x
Providing information on HIV/AIDS x -
Providing condoms x -
Telling men to have sex with other men - x
Telling MSM not to have sex - x
Telling MSM to have safe sex x -
Developing responsible behavior in MSM x -
Provide counseling services to MSM x -
Provide information on HIV/AIDS at CS* x -
Once the objectives were clarified the facilitator suggested
to the group to do a little role-play of how they would generally behave when
they would try to build rapport by behaving like a kothi.
At the end of 3 different role-plays the facilitator asked
the group to reflect on the role-plays as someone who was passing by the
cruising site. Following was some of
the reflection:
·
It seemed as if two kothi friends were having fun
·
It looked like as if two kothis were cruising and looking
for a good looking panthi
·
It is a good way of making friends. Once they were good friends the outreach
worker would have easily talked about BSWS
·
To me it looked as if two kothi friends were gossiping and
attracting clients
·
It was very clear that two kothi friends were looking for a
panthi
At this point the facilitator told the group to divide
themselves into pairs. Each pair will
think about the objectives of BSWS and the services that BSWS provides and then
think of the role-plays and reflection.
Discuss the entire situation with each other and with consensus come up
with three things that were compatible with the objectives and services of BSWS
and three things that were not compatible with the objectives and services of
BSWS.
Some of the common factors in the presentations were as
follows:
·
To act as a kothi was good as it immediately created a
comfort level between the outreach worker and the client
·
I think to act as a kothi was not good because the client
was in no mood of discussing anything rather he was more interested in
gossiping and looking at the panthis
·
Our objective as the BSWS workers is to provide information
on HIV/AIDS prevention and this way we were wasting time and were talking about
other things that had no connection with HIV/AIDS prevention
·
There was no seriousness in the conversation. If there had been police around they would
have taken the BSWS’ worker for a sex worker and could have arrested the worker
too
·
We think that one should start the conversation as one kothi
to another but once we have the trust of person then we can deliver our
messages and do our work, it is more effective.
The facilitator wrapped up the discussion by saying that
BSWS’ objectives are best carried out in a professional way otherwise outreach
staff may face problems. He added that
one does not have to behave as a kothi to get the trust and confident of the
other person. There are ways to build
rapport and trust without imitating and mirroring other person’s behavior.
End of Day 1 and Feedback:
At the end of the
day the facilitators jointly recapped the entire days work and asked
participants to describe their feelings about the workshop process and how they
felt about it.
Feedback:
·
A good day,
learnt a lot without realizing it
·
A very good
workshop. I have never attended such a
workshop before. I liked the role-plays
and exercises
·
Role-plays
were fun. It was good learning
·
Very nice
day. Looking forward to tomorrow
·
I think I
learnt a lot today and I feel nice about it
·
I hope we have
a similar kind of day tomorrow
·
It was
fun. I have never been to such a
workshop. It was better than lectures
given in other workshop. One learns
quickly this way
·
I like the
facilitator. He is pleasant and good
looking
·
The time flew
quickly. I did not realize that we had
spent an entire day in just one room
·
Hope all our
expectations are met in this workshop
·
I liked the
way the workshop is being conducted and am looking forward to tomorrows
proceedings
DAY 2
Sharing of
Feelings:
The morning session started with participants sharing their
personal feelings:
·
It is a good day and I hope to learn more today
·
I am feeling good and hope that today would be as enjoyable
as yesterday
·
It is nice and I hope to learn more
·
I am feeling good, by good I mean I am happy to be in the
workshop
·
I hope to learn more today.
I am very happy that I got this chance to attend the workshop
·
I was most of the time thinking about the role-plays
yesterday. I also dreamt of the
role-plays
·
I am happy to be in the workshop. I dreamt of the facilitator.
I like him
·
Workshop is good and we all are here together that is also
good
·
I am glad to be here.
Look forward to learning more stuff today
·
I am happy and feeling good. Yesterday I had a headache but today I am feeling better
·
I hope to learn more today.
Yesterday was great
Self-expression, Outreach work and Counseling-continuing the
discussion:
Counseling group work:
The facilitator
asked participants to divide themselves in groups of three. All three would act as a counselor for five
minutes, client for five minutes and observer for five minutes. In each sitting the client would choose the
topic and the counselor would talk to him on the issue. The observer would keep the checklist from
yesterday’s role-play in front of him and would observe how it helped to be
friendly, pleasant and etc.
Reflection:
Following was the
reflection of participants after the group work:
·
It helped the client to speak more openly when the counselor
was friendly
·
The counselor was too friendly and therefore the client was
not taking him seriously
·
I think it was a friendly atmosphere and that was very good
for client as client started talking to the counselor immediately
·
Counselor was trying to be friendly but the client was too
agitated to notice that
·
I feel that counselor could have been more friendly because
the client was scared
·
I think the exchange of greetings and shaking hands helped a
lot. It helped in developing trust in
the client
·
In my case, I liked my counselor because he was willing to
listen to my problem with all his attention.
In the beginning he was smiling and offered me a glass of water, I felt
good because I was treated very well.
After that the counselor started listening to me with lots of attention
·
It was a little strange because the counselor was constantly
telling the client to speak sometimes he was harsh too. It looked like as if the counselor wanted
the client to speak on any cost
·
When I was observing, what I saw was that the counselor was
making notes of each and everything.
The client started looking at the writing pad and then the client also
started looking at what he was writing making sure everything was written down
·
As a client I felt good when my counselor said that he would
solve my problem
·
My client was very difficult, he was totally distracted and
would not listen to anything no matter what I did
·
It was difficult for me to handle my client because he was
very angry. His boyfriend had snatched
his money and the police had treated him badly. He was not listening to what I was saying and that created a
difficult position for me
·
My client was just not talking. He kept on looking at me.
Even after I introduced myself he still kept on looking at my face. I was angry and told him to talk instead of
looking at my face
·
I think, I observed a perfect counseling session. The client was very cooperative. The counselor was listening and willing to
help the client.
At this point the facilitator wrapped up the session on
counseling by linking discussions from yesterday to the group work and its
reflection. He suggested that while
interaction during outreach may have some of the similar protocols as
counseling but the objectives are different.
He added that in outreach the objective is to provide information, make
contacts, motivate the community to access the services and provide condoms.
Counseling, has a different objective. It is mostly done in situations where the
client may be facing problems for which he may need outside assistance to
resolve such as psychosexual issues, family pressures and problems arising out
of it, violence, low self esteem and identity issues.
The facilitator re emphasized the role of BSWS as an agency
providing mental and physical health support to MSM. He made it clear that BSWS does not provide space, facilities or
support for:
·
Sexual activity
·
Finding sex partners
·
Providing space for sex
He added that the outreach officers should not make any
promises that they know is beyond their scope of work.
Growing up years:
Participants were
divided into groups of 5 and each group was asked to draw a picture that showed
the things that each participant did in his adolescence.
Upon the completion of pictures each group was asked to come
and present their work to participants.
Generally, the pictures showed a wide range of activities,
from cleaning the house to cooking, dancing at weddings, wearing women
clothing, idealizing a class fellow and playing with dolls.
The facilitator asked each group to talk about their
feelings around the activities showed in the pictures. Following were some of
the comments:
·
I enjoyed dancing but I use to do it with my kothi friends
in the village. We kothis have a way of
finding each other. There were three or
four of us who would dance at all the weddings
·
I use to play with my mothers saris. What I mean is that I would take away her
saris and tie them around me. I would
do this secretively. Why did I do it
secretively was because I was caught once by my older brother who called me a
maghya
·
I use to help my mother a lot. I loved sitting in the kitchen with her. It used to be lots of
fun. I would cut vegetables for her and
do other chores around the kitchen. My
aunt use to tease my mother that I was a little daughter and not a son. I do not know how my mother felt about these
remarks. She would just laugh it off
·
I used to play with girls.
My brothers would get annoyed.
They would tease me and call me names such as chaka, maghya. I used to feel really bad. See this is my picture I am crying because
my brothers have hit me as I am dressed in a sari
·
I enjoyed putting nail polish on my nails. I would use color pencils for that. Once my mother caught me doing it and she
beat me. The picture shows the nails
with red color on it. I always wanted
my nails to grow and would picture them with bright red polish on them
·
I loved the way my mother would wear the sari and all the
jewelry and I would sometime take away her sari to another room and tie it
around myself
The facilitator talked a little more about socialization
process and how it impacts the identity formation of a person.
Identity issues:
The facilitator
asked the group to say the first thing that came to their mind when the
facilitator said the following four words.
Following were the responses:
Handsome Mother Man who
is not a man Handsome
Panthi Mother Half
male/half female Panthi
Man Sister Hijra Handsome
Strong Weak Half
male/half female Sex partner
Family head Mother Kothi Panthi
Strong Mother Half
male/half female Sexy
Father Mother Half
male/half female Sex partner
Family head Pretty Pretty Sex partner
Good looking Kind Gossipy Man
Man Gentle Quarrel Strong
man
Father Mother Sister Sex partner
Strong Mother Rude Cruel
Love Sister Friend Love
Human Human Human Human
Roles and Labels:
The facilitator
asked the group to separate the roles from labels in the above list. There was a discussion in the group. They were facilitated through the process
that how roles as well as labels are given to each individual by the
society. Labels emerge from
characteristics and gender roles and finally become part of identity processes.
Participants were
asked to brainstorm on how comfortable were they with their roles and the
labels given to them by the society.
Following were some of the responses:
·
I do not like when people call me Chakka or Maghya in front
of my family. It does not matter if they
call me these names when my family is not around. The reason that I do not like them calling me such names in front
of my family is that I feel embarrassed.
I am a grown up man and I feel humiliated.
·
I do not mind anything.
I am proud to be gay. What I do
not like is that why cannot people accept me as I am. Once a friend (girl) said that you may be good looking than me
and boys may chase you more than they chase me but remember that you cannot
have children at which I said that thank Allah that he has not given me uterus
otherwise I would have had million abortions by now so still I am better off
that I can have as much sex as I want without thinking of consequences
·
I do not face any problems.
I am a married man. I do not
think so that my wife knows about my sexual life with men. I have not had any marital problems till now
and am sure will not have any in future too.
I am proud of what I am
·
Sometimes I feel very bad.
I constantly question Allah that why did he give me a woman’s feeling
and a man’s body. I want to be a woman
but cannot be one. I am confused and
sad. I am very sad when people call me names.
In my childhood it use to happen a lot more but now things have slowed
down and people generally do not notice me still when someone call me these
names I feel ashamed and humiliated
·
It is not easy to live our kind of lives. From childhood I have thought of myself as a
female. When the boys at school and
neighborhood use to call me chakka and maghya I use to be confused and
ashamed. Now I do not care. I think my family knows what I am up
to. They know that I dance and they
have tried to stop me but after all the beating and harassment I have not
stopped.
·
I know that I am a man but I have always felt like a
woman. Joining Bandhu has changed many
things for me. First I use to think
that I was sinning and was a bad person but after coming here I have
understood that my feelings are something that is beyond my control. It is natural because from childhood I have
felt this way.
·
I let people call me whatever they want to. I used to get disturbed when I was a
child but not anymore. I know what I am
and I am proud to be what I am.
The facilitator asked the group to make a list of words from
the above responses that reflects guilt or shame and think that why were these
words used in these responses.
A reflection session was conducted to talk about the list of
word. The facilitator wrapped up the
discussion by suggesting that generally people coming as a client would be
facing the same confusions and guilt in their lives and it becomes the duty of
the counselor to work through such feelings of the client and facilitate
her/him to free her/himself from such feelings of guilt, shame, embarrassment
and humiliation.
Male to Male Sex (MMS) and Islam:
Facilitator asked
participants to divide themselves in groups of three. Each group had to brainstorm and list reasons why in their
opinion Islam prohibits male to male sex and also think of all the sources from
where they may have gathered all this knowledge. Further as part of the same group work the three would negotiate
and discuss with each other the differences in the list and resolution of these
differences. Whatever is the result of
consensus in each group, each group will present that.
The presentations
highlighted the following:
Why is it
prohibited in Islam?
·
It is
prohibited because it is unnatural act.
Allah will never forgive this sin.
It is Gunah-e-Kabira (Sin of highest order). Whoever commits this sin will go straight to hell. The person who is getting penetrated is a
greater sinner than the person who is penetrating.
·
The story of
nation of lat it is evidence that this sin will never be forgiven by
Allah. The reason it is prohibited is
that it is Gunah-e-Kabira and is not liked by Allah. This is the most terrible sin and greatest of all. I know that Allah does not like it
·
It is
prohibited in Islam because it is against the nature. Allah will forgive for all the sins except this. It is so bad and terrible. When two men are doing this act the angels
go in hiding and the satan is laughing.
There is no forgiveness for this sin.
·
I think it is
prohibited because it is against the order of nature. Allah has made women for this purpose and not man and this leads to
wrath of Allah. There is ample evidence
in Quranic text that tells us that this is totally prohibited.
Sources:
Following were
some of the sources identified by the groups in their presentations:
·
Mullah
·
Family elders
·
School masters
·
Newspapers
·
Religious
books
·
Magazines
·
Religious
magazines
·
Friends
·
Sex partners
Resolution:
Some of the
common resolutions were as follows:
·
One should seek Allah’s forgiveness. He may forgive us for our sins
·
We are still confused about our feelings. It is something that we all wanted from
quite an early age. We all felt
similarly attracted to all men, meaning it was not something that we felt was
unnatural. I guess we do not have a
resolution to our problem here
·
The way we three looked at it was a desire that we
have. When we look at someone meaning a
man, we feel attracted to him. Why
should we be punished for something that is beyond our control.
·
You tell us how can we resolve this situation. What is there in the Quran for this act and
where about in the Quran is this thing mentioned.
At this point the facilitator talked about his understanding
of Quran and walked the participant through the logic of Quran and concept of
right and wrong as the facilitator understood.
He also discussed the sanctity of private spaces and how Islam guards
the privacy of human beings.
He further discussed how sexual relationships in Islam were
defined in a social context and any relationships outside this context were not
allowed in Islam. May it be between a
man and a woman or a man and a man. The
facilitator also reflected upon how he understood the need for procreation in
Islam as well as other religion.
At the end the facilitator added that each person will be
accountable for her and his deed and it is not upon the facilitator to make any
judgment on such issues. Similarly he
felt that Mullah or anyone else does not have any right to judge anyone else as
that is a right reserved with Allah.
Therefore accountability is something that takes place between human and
her/his Allah without any interference from outsiders.
Conclusion and Final Feedback:
The facilitators
concluded the two days workshop by recapping most of the activities of two
days. Following was the feedback
of the group:
·
It was a very good workshop. I am sad that from tomorrow I will not be seeing the
facilitators. It was lots of fun
·
I have never attended such a workshop. It was lot of fun. We learnt a lot from the different activities. I enjoyed the role-plays most. I especially loved the drawing of pictures
and talking about our childhood years.
·
It was lots of fun.
I did not realize that we were sitting through training. The two days went by real quickly
·
I am sad that tomorrow we will not be coming here for the
workshop. It was good to sit here and
learn so much. What I have learnt here
is something that I can use in my work otherwise too
·
I will miss the facilitators. The workshop was great. I
wish all our workshops are done in a similar way
·
I enjoyed the role-plays and drawing the pictures. The group work was also lots of fun. It was a very good workshop
·
I wish the facilitator had talked more about Male to Male
Sex (MMS) and Islam. Each time it is
covered in the end and very briefly.
May be next time we will have a detailed discussion on it. The workshop was very good
·
Very short time for the workshop. I wish we had more time because there is so much that needs to be
discussed
·
I wish the facilitator spoke Bangla. It would have been much better than this
·
I enjoyed the workshop very much. Role-plays were very real and that helped me to understand some
of the issues with clarity
·
Good workshop. Very
good facilitators
As mentioned in
the introduction, this workshop is part of the series of workshop on
counseling. Bandhu Social Welfare
Society has been very consistent in strengthening its program component on
counseling. Due to BSWS’ consistent
efforts of holding counseling workshops, this workshop was a step forward. The content of the workshop graduated from
essentials of counseling to more substantial issues such as identity,
socialization and religion. The
framework of this workshop was also different from the previous workshops. The idea was to inculcate thought process
that could start linking different aspect of human psyche.
The important underlying theme of these workshops is that
sexual health cannot be seen in isolation of other aspects of lives of
MSM. Issues such as non- acceptability
by the mainstream society, fear of loosing the family support structure,
pressures from the society and family to conform to the distinct gender role
are few of the numerous that MSM daily face in South Asian societies. This adds to the anger, guilt and confusion
of MSM populations in South Asia. Thus,
promoting sexual health becomes meaningless if all or some of these issues are
not resolved. The protocol of
counseling looks at the larger picture and sexual health as part of the larger
context.
However, this does not mean that the importance of promoting
sexual health or safety is compromised at any point in these trainings. What it actually means is that each exercise
and role-play reinforces the sexual health messages but in a more holistic and
complete sense where the client feels that he is needed and is very important
as an individual and therefore he needs to keep himself sexually safe. The messages are linked with other messages
that help in improving the self-esteem and sense of self of the client.
The entire process is passed on to the group through
experiencing different situation. Each
exercise and role-play is some experience that participant may have been
through. The resolution of the
issue/problem is generally through motivating the group to finding alternatives
to resolve the problem within the social constraints. Mental and sexual health is intrinsically linked with each issue
and its resolution.
As this process is constantly evolving, innovation and
experimentation will only bring richness to the entire process. Following are some of the recommendation in
this regard:
March, 2001
This was the
second workshop in Dhaka. Participants
of this workshop were mainly BSWS’ outreach staff. It was the first time that this group was part of a counseling
workshop. The necessity to include this
group was felt by the BSWS’ administration due to the expansion of BSWS’
work. This workshop included
participants from 3 BSWS’ projects in Dhaka.
Introduction:
Norm Setting through Experience Sharing:
Participants agreed on following norms through reflecting on the necessity of each norm and how would they personally feel if any of these norms were violated in reference to their daily interactions with other people.
Generally the
feelings were no different than the previous workshop. The feelings again ranged from frustration,
anger to lack of willingness to participate and to boredom. Resultantly, norms set were more or less the
same as decided by the earlier group in the first workshop:
Norms:
·
Listening to and
respecting other person’s point of view
·
Not saying things
that would hurt others
·
No foul language
·
No smoking inside the
room
·
No pan chewing inside
the room
·
Patience
·
No cross talking and
side talking
·
Raise hands before
speaking and speaking at ones own turn
·
To be tolerant
towards each other
At the end,
participants linked some of the above norms to their outreach work and
counseling in a discussion. They
reflected upon these norms within the framework of their work.
Expectations:
Following were the expectations of participants from the
workshop:
·
I will learn about
counseling, meaning what is counseling.
·
I am looking forward
to learn about counseling. I have heard
about these workshops and would want to know what exactly is counseling
·
I want to know the
definition of counseling
·
I want to know about
psychosexual counseling
·
I want to learn about
pre-test and post-test counseling
·
I want to know how
counseling helps us in our work
·
I want to know about
safe sex practices in this workshop
·
I want to learn how
counseling is done
·
What is the
difference between psychosexual counseling and other counseling, by other counseling
I mean counseling done for using condoms and promoting safe sex.
Following this the
facilitator discussed the expectations that were part of this workshop and
others that formed content for a separate workshop.
The facilitator
asked participants to divide themselves into smaller groups and
brainstorm/discuss what is counseling.
Following a 15 minutes discussion/brainstorming the group would present
their work in form of art or bullet points.
Some of the responses from the group work were as follows:
·
Counseling is talking to each other and telling the
other person what to do and what not to do
·
Counseling is finding from other person what is wrong
·
Counseling is writing other person’s problem on piece of
paper and then trying to solve those problems
·
Counseling is talking to each other and solving problems
together
·
Counseling is solving problems of a person
Apart from the
above responses there was some art work too that reflected upon the process of
counseling. Most of the pictures showed
a table and two chairs, it also showed the counselor sitting behind the table
and the client at the other side of the table.
Situational Role-plays:
The group was asked to think about real life situations and
do role-plays of those situations.
However, in each situation there should be “telling each other”,
“writing problems while the other person is talking”, “finding from each other
what is wrong”, “talking to each other and solving problems together” and
“solving problems of a person”.
Issue: Not getting a panthi
Mastan, who is
also a client of the male sex worker beating him and taking away his money
Client Reflection:
Following was the reflection of the clients after the
counseling sessions
·
The counselor was not paying attention to me. He was constantly writing, after a while I
stopped talking and he did not even notice it.
He thought that I had finished talking when I still had a lot to talk
about
·
I did not like the way the counselor was looking at me. Sometimes he would have a smile on his face
that I did not like. I felt that he was
not sympathizing with my situation
·
My counselor was ordering me. First he said that whatever I did was wrong and I should start
being careful. I was about to tell him
to mind his own business because I did not like the way he was talking to me
·
I think my counselor was okay. He was listening at times but at other times he was writing. I felt irritated when he was doing his
writing. I wanted to snatch the pen and
paper from him and throw it away
·
My counselor was looking everywhere except at me. I felt that he was sitting there not for me
but for looking at the group and making jokes with them
Counselor Reflection:
·
I think that the session was good. I was little uncomfortable because my client was very
difficult. He was not willing to
talk. I was trying to make him
talk. By trying I mean that I would ask
him questions but he would not answer
·
The counseling session was okay. I enjoyed it except my client was talking too much and I was
unable to write everything down. The
reason I was writing everything was to remember it but even though that I asked
the client to be slower he still kept on talking
·
My client was not telling me the truth. The way I found that out was that first he
told me that his parents do not want him to get married but it is the remaining
family but then later on said that parents are also pressurizing him to get
married. I told him that he should not
lie
·
There was nothing wrong with the session. I think it went well. My client was enjoying it. He was happy and was willing to talk to me. He did say that I should get him a panthi
and I promised him if he would talk to me
·
I told my client that he was doing a wrong thing by visiting
cruising areas and he should stay away from such cruising areas as bad people
visit such areas
Group Reflection:
Following was some of the feedback given by participants:
·
I think that the counseling was good. The counselor was trying to write everything
actually it was the client who was not patient and would not wait for the
counselor to finish writing before moving to the next problem
·
The counselors were rude and by rude I mean that they were
talking to their clients as if they were doing them a favor. I think counselor should be polite and
pleasant to his client
·
The counselors were good.
They wanted to know the problems of their clients so that they could
help them but it was the clients who were not willing to speak about their
problems
·
The counseling sessions were good. By good I mean there was some problem solving when the counselor
told the client to get married if the parents were insisting
·
Generally the counseling sessions were okay. The clients were the problems. They were not willing to cooperate with the
counselor and would not talk to them properly
·
Clients were very difficult. Counselors were helpful.
They were trying to do their utmost to help the client.
·
Clients were distracted and were not looking at the
counselor. This made counselor’s job
all the more difficult
·
Counselors were not able to make the client talk
·
Counselors were laughing and making faces
At this point the facilitator asked the clients to come up
with some of those factors that would have facilitated their session with the
counselor. Following were some of the
suggestions from the clients:
·
Counselor should have paid attention to what I was
saying instead of looking around.
·
Counselor should not have laughed when I asked him to
provide me a panthi. That stopped me
from telling him my other problems. I
immediately knew that he was making fun of me and I did not like it.
·
Counselor was writing on paper and not looking at me. After sometime I felt that he was only
interested in writing so I started telling him different things and that too
real fast
·
Counselor was not sitting properly. It made me feel as if I was going for a
job and he was interviewing me. I did
not like his tone either. He spoke very
roughly
From the
responses, the facilitator facilitated the group to make the first list of
counseling essentials. The list was as
follows:
Essentials of Counseling- 1st list:
1.
Look at the client when he is talking to you or you
are talking to him. Maintain eye to eye
contact
2.
Be pleasant with your client. Do not laugh at him irrespective the nature
of his problem
3.
The counselor should not write anything during
counseling. The entire focus should be
the client
4.
Counselor should always take a sitting posture that
is close to the sitting posture of the client
5.
Counselor should use polite language and the tone
should be pleasant and friendly
6.
Counselor should avoid any barrier such as table etc
between him and his client. If there is
a table in the room then the counselor should walk around it and sit next to
the client
7.
Counselor should create a trusting environment
8.
Counselor should always listen to everything that the
client is saying no matter how insignificant or irrelevant that thing may be