Published:April 15, 2010

Dr. Ani Kalayjian, professor of psychology at Fordham College at Lincoln Center (FCLC), is the founder and current president of the Mental Health Outreach Project, an organization aimed at bringing “psychosocial and spiritual” rehabilitation to tragedy-stricken countries. For the past 21 years, she and her team have traveled to nearly 25 countries ravaged by earthquakes, tornadoes, tsunamis and other natural disasters. Most recently, the organization traveled to Haiti to provide mental health rehabilitation to those affected by the earthquake.

Observer: How long after the earthquake struck were you able to get to Haiti?

Dr. Ani Kalayjian: I was not in the country when the earthquake happened, but as soon as I got back it took about a month and a half to get actually going. We had five people [on the trip] for 10 days straight, March 10 through 20.

Observer: What exactly does your organization do when you arrive?

A: First, we pre-assess. Who are the survivors? What is their culture? Their religion? Their history of natural disasters? We review the literature and we review the clips from newspapers and YouTube. We go back to look at who the survivors are and their history of coping. Haiti had a very troubling past, a high level of poverty and illiteracy. [Next] we look at the impact of the disaster. Was it man-made? Natural? How has it impacted the country? How many people are dead? What is going on? This will give us a good groundwork to know the people we are serving.

Observer: What did you find and how did it compare to what you were prepared for?

A: “Last year we served in Sierra Leon. When we went, we thought that was the worst that we would ever see in terms of human suffering and human need. But we were shocked to see that Haiti was even worse than Sierra Leone. I’ve been in almost 10 earthquakes and tsunamis and hurricanes, and I have not experienced anything on this magnitude. It’s not just the capital [Port au Prince], five huge cities were impacted, along with hundreds of villages. The impact was immense. Already two weeks had passed and very little cleaning had been done. All the rubble was standing. I had presumed that with all the money going there, I thought at least some of the rubble would be clean and people would be ready with their basic needs of food, water, shelter. I thought we would be ready to work on things like psychological needs but we found out that we had to help them get their basic needs met.”

OBSERVER: What kind of rehabilitation did you deem necessary for the people of Haiti?

A: “We followed our organization’s ‘biopsychosocial and ECO spiritual model. It’s a seven-step process that we follow to rehabilitate those affected by great loss in disasters. The steps are as follows:

1- Allow them to experience the emotion.

2- Ask them to release and identify their feelings.

3- Express empathy and validate their experiences.

4- Help them find new meanings for their lives, and find new strengths in them.

5- Give them didactic information. Information is power.

6- Connect with Gaya, mother earth. We help them think about how they can be one with Earth and their environment.

7- The experiential step—using breathing exercises as a naturally healing method.”

OBSERVER: Was your therapy effective? What are the next steps?

A: “It was a really fulfilling, gratifying experience. Having survivors, the president of the hospital, the director of the orphanages, the principals of the schools, say, ‘Our staff was always in distress, and you’ve done miracles. You’ve processed their grief and helped them find meaning in their life. They have renewed energy and stamina,’ was unbelievable. We had to do a lot of follow-up, and on a practival level, we had to buy water and snacks for those in therapy every day. But the work needs to continue. Our second team is working there now but we need to make a third team. We didn’t see the help going to the people. We hear about fundraisers, but when are the people going to benefit from this? It’s something frustrating that I have seen in every disaster.”

Kalayjian’s Web site,  meaningfulworld.com, is open to donations, which are taken directly to the people of Haiti by team members.