Zamboanga City, September 23 – The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) and Victory Christian Fellowship, a faith-based organization, conducted a psychosocial therapy activity for 500 children as part of their stress debriefing to lessen their trauma from the on-going crisis in Zamboanga.

The children were provided with play therapy sessions and participated in the interactive fun games, where they enjoyed the performances of the mascots and magicians.

According to DSWD Secretary Corazon Juliano-Soliman, the activity serves as a coping mechanism to respond to children’s traumatic experiences that caused fear, helplessness, grief, and anger.

Secretary Soliman said that the initiative of the Victory Christian Fellowship complements the stress debriefing, play and art therapy, and Supervised Neighborhood Play services of the DSWD.

“With thousands of children traumatized by the incident, we welcome groups to help us conduct stress debriefing activities. We have to help these children regain their normal social and mental functioning. We could not do this alone, we need the help of partners,” Secretary Soliman ended.