March 4, 2018 - The Reason We're Here

Lest you think we are just on an extended vacation, we thought we would give you a little background on why we are here in Rome.  Mark has the opportunity, as do other faculty at BYU, to take a professional development (or sabbatical) leave every seven years, as a way to develop skills or research.  Mark thought being able to work with refugees would help him develop skills in having more multicultural understanding and in working with people who have experienced trauma.

After significant effort and through the help of several kind people (including Mark's cousin, Trent Knight), he was able to make contact with an Italian group called MEDU (Medici per i Diritti Umani or Doctors for Human Rights), that works to provide medical and psychological care to the thousands of refugees who come to and through Italy primarily from Africa each year (approximately 730,000 people landed on the shores of Italy between 2001 and 2016, and more than half of those landed in the last 32 months of that period.).  The LDS Church has sponsored MEDU since 2015 (Check out this brief video that shows a little bit about what MEDU does.  The main guy talking in the video is Alberto Barbieri, with whom Mark will be working.).  Mark will primarily be helping MEDU to develop psycho-educational groups to help refugees who have experienced significant trauma.

MEDU's website does a great job of explaining what they are trying to do, if you are interested.


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