Completed Applied Projects in Cooperation with ITG
An estimated 40 percent of all refugees have been traumatized by events in their country of origin and by experiences during their flight. In addition to health problems and psychological impairments, such trauma also leads to profound existential crises. The goal of the OMID project was to provide low-threshold support services for traumatized refugees—both children and adults—as early as possible, directly on-site at the shared housing facilities.
Funded by the City of Stuttgart, the Episcopal Ordinariate of the Diocese of Rottenburg-Stuttgart, and the Caritas Association for Stuttgart e. V., OMID set the following goals:
- Developing and implementing new and early-intervention support services for traumatized refugees on-site at refugee shelters
- Developing and implementing supportive pastoral care services
- Establishing new networks with previously untapped expertise
- Ensuring results through scientific monitoring
Ensuring sustainability—both in terms of content and funding—beyond the end of the project
Contact: Prof. Dr. Dr. Jan Ilhan Kizilhan
As part of the PSYCH-On pilot project, e-learning modules on the topic of “Health—Mental Illness and Rehabilitation” were developed from October 2014 to March 2018 as a supplementary teaching and learning resource for the “Social Work” degree program. The course addressed selected mental disorders from the ICD-10 classification as well as specialized content applicable across various disorders. It consisted of a total of eleven learning units. Together with experienced social workers, recognized experts conveyed their knowledge through video and audio clips, animated graphics, and self-assessment exercises. Thanks to its modular structure, PSYCH-On can be used for both self-study and in blended learning scenarios.
Contacts: Prof. Dr. Dr. Jan Ilhan Kizilhan, Kornelia Schlegel, Christiana Nolte
Experience gained during the “MiMi – Violence Prevention with Migrant Women for Migrant Women” (MiMi Violence Prevention) project had shown that information and prevention efforts must target not only women but also men. Based on the concept developed for women, training content and informational materials addressing the gender-specific aspects of violence and sexuality were therefore developed specifically for men.
Subsequently, men with a migrant background were trained at various locations throughout Germany. Acting as intercultural mediators, they provided culturally, linguistically, and gender-sensitive information on forms of gender-based violence, violence prevention, reinterpreting cultural and structural violence, alternative strategies, as well as protection options and coping strategies. In addition, a guidebook was developed for refugee and newly arrived immigrant men.
The project, funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Migration, Refugees, and Integration, was scientifically monitored and evaluated by the project team at DHBW Villingen-Schwenningen, led by Prof. Dr. Dr. Kizilhan and in cooperation with the Ethnomedizinisches Zentrum e. V. The findings were ultimately presented at a nationwide symposium held on December 19, 2018, in Berlin.
Contacts: Prof. Dr. Dr. Jan Ilhan Kizilhan, Claudia Klett, Andreas Sauter
Link to the MiMi homepage
Link to the learning resource “MiMi Violence Prevention”
To protect against the rapid spread of the virus, all countries around the world have adopted protective measures, some of them drastic, which severely restrict citizens' freedom of movement and choice. As a result, cultural and leisure facilities, schools, day-care centres and universities were closed, as were numerous shops that did not serve the needs of daily life. The entire world economy will not be spared the consequences of Covid-19.
The CENTAUR-project focuses on key players of the creative sector, therefore, aims at:
a) supporting, mobilizing and empowering entrepreneurs (organisations and individuals), active in the creative sector and in the EU cultural tradition, to develop online collaboration and sustainable networks for sharing their knowledge with trainers and adult learners;
b) supporting, mobilizing and empowering educators to use online collaboration and tools for raising awareness of the benefits of teaching and creative activities, especially in the EU cultural tradition, including music, performing arts;
c) raise interest and offer skills in adults, to develop their creativity in constructive ways and in support of inclusion, especially of migrants and other marginalized groups.
For people who have experienced trauma in particular, the new normal of the COVID-19 pandemic—with face masks and social distancing measures—could act as a trigger, causing them to relive past traumatic experiences and emotions.
One of the key focuses of the expansion of the institute’s own online platform was how to incorporate migration- and culture-specific aspects into the psychosocial care of migrants during the COVID-19 pandemic. Here, professionals could find scientifically grounded information on migration, transcultural communication, and resource-building for clients. People with a migration background had a direct voice in this process: In the platform’s video gallery, they shared their personal experiences during the COVID-19 crisis. Information sheets on the topic of “Protecting Mental Health” were also available for download in multiple languages to be shared with clients or used within their own institutions. In the “Self-Care” section, professionals found information on how to take good care of themselves amid the additional stresses of the crisis.
As one humanitarian initiative from Lower-Saxony the “Luftbrücke Irak” (air bridge Iraq) shows the immense human commitment of the German citizens to support people in poverty and distress in war areas, to ease their suffering and give innocent children a new chance for a better life.
The initiative was founded after an urgent appeal from Iraq in late summer of 2007 in the City of Peace Osnabrueck. It is about the aid for young victims of war.
When troops of the self-proclaimed “Islamic State” (IS) conquered areas of northern Iraq in August 2014, they turned against the religious minorities in the region, particularly against Yazidis, with extreme brutality. Many men were executed; women and children were kidnapped and systematically raped. The medical and psychological problems occurring as a result of the combination of individual perception of traumatic experiences, collective and cultural traumatisation and the subsequent migration and refugee crisis are therefore quite extraordinary. They require new and well-thought-out concepts of integrated medical care.
The earthquake that struck Turkey and northern Syria on February 6, 2023, destroyed large parts of the infrastructure in the affected regions. More than 40,000 people lost their lives, and tens of thousands suffered injuries, some of them severe. To provide effective psychological support in conjunction with the establishment of a psychosocial care system, the Institute for Transcultural Health Research, in cooperation with the University of Dohuk and with support from the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, has launched a train-the-trainer project. As part of the project, psychologists, physicians, social workers, and psychosocial professionals are receiving further training in workshops to establish or expand local structures for providing psychosocial support to the population in the disaster-stricken area.
Thirty-four representatives from various institutions participated in a specialized training week held by the Institute for Transcultural Health Research (ITG) and the Center for Advanced Studies (CAS) in Heilbronn from April 16–23, 2023. Additional training sessions were also organized in Turkey (on-site) and Syria (online) throughout 2024.