Volunteer Opportunity: Afghan Humanitarian Crisis Counseling

We have an exciting international humanitarian crisis counseling initiative to share with you.

Trauma Recovery/HAP was invited by a coalition of volunteers from multiple organizations, including Amwell and Afghan Medical Professional Association of America (AMPAA), to help find clinicians to provide free telehealth crisis counseling to Afghan refugees still physically in Afghanistan and Qatar.

This is a terrific opportunity for TRN members, faculty, and other clinicians in our volunteer community to offer their services to a population in dire need.

Here is a brief summary depicting the situation and needs of the Afghan refugees you would be working with:

• More than 100,000 civilians evacuated the country since the Taliban took power in mid-August, though many were unable to leave in the final chaotic airlifts. According to the U.N. development agency, the thirty-eight million Afghans who remain are facing universal poverty within a year.
• Those who remain are struggling to process and adjust to their new reality.
• People who held certain jobs – journalists, translators, cultural advisors, drivers, those linked to former government or Western organizations- are more at risk, living in fear, as their lives and their families are now in danger.
• Many say their way of life cannot endure under the Taliban, notorious for their restrictions on women and on civil liberties.
• The Afghan population as a whole has been pushed to the limit by prolonged conflict, high levels of displacement, the impact of COVID-19, natural disasters and deepening poverty.
• The population this initiative focuses on are Afghans who are physically in Afghanistan or Qatar trying to flee the country and get to safe havens in the US.

If you are interested in volunteering, we can provide further information about this project, including help with technology and cultural awareness. Volunteers will need the phone app Signal to receive notifications of new patients seeking counseling. Telehealth counseling sessions will be conducted using Amwell’s Converge platform, which is very user friendly for both the clinician and patient.

There are no state limitations as to who can participate. Any U.S. licensed mental health professional, with insurance, can provide international telehealth mental health services for this humanitarian crisis. Counseling sessions will be conducted in English.

To indicate your interest in volunteering, ask additional questions, or receive more information on the logistics of this project, please contact Josh Glaser at projects@emdrhap.org.