Facing Trauma: Discover the stories of Ezra, Elias, Atid, Satya, Samir, and Viktoria

The Facing Trauma poster illustrates the storylines of the six main characters from the toolkit on trauma-informed youth work. The full storylines of the characters can be found in the appendix of the activity bundle.

Possible topics to discuss for each storyline:

• Blue: neglect, psychologist, loss of a loved one, responsibilities, reading …
• Red: natural disaster, friends, hobbies, refugee shelters …
• Yellow: disasters, siblings, nightmares, secondary trauma, vending on the market, knitting …
• Green: reunification, youth care facilities, refugees, board games, separation …
• Purple: war, singing, social media, seeking shelter, separation from family …

The following games can also be played with this educational poster:

• Facing Trauma: Building the stories of Ezra, Elias, Atid & Satya, Samir & Viktoria

This game is part of the toolkit ‘Facing trauma - A toolkit on trauma-informed support for children and youth’. This toolkit is a cooperation between StreetSmart, Minor-Ndako, Save the Children Romania & SolidarityNow, cofinanced by the European Union. It provides simple tools to explore important topics like trauma, stress, self-care and emotions in a way that’s easy to use with different target groups.

• Use the arrows on the left and right side of each storyline. Ask the children to think about what will happen in the future or what happened in the past for the six main characters of the poster. What will they do in the future, when they grow up? What will they become? How will certain storylines evolve in the future? What did you think happened to each character before the story on the poster began? What kind of experiences might have shaped who they are now? Can you think of any events or people in their past that might have influenced their current life?
• Listen to one of the audio stories and let the children vote on which character they think the story belongs to. This can be a fun way to test their attention and understanding of the storylines.
• After listening to the story, engage the players in identifying and discussing the sounds they can "hear" in the pictures:

o Which picture can you "listen" to a sound?

o How many city sounds can you identify?

o How many nature sounds can you identify?

o Are there any sudden sounds? Playful sounds? Funny sounds? Songs?

o What sounds would you like to hear when facing a difficulty (e.g., music, birds, voice of friends)?

o Which of the sounds makes you happy? Which ones give you strength? Which ones make you upset?

o If you had to choose three sounds, which ones would you choose and why?

• For young players, you can focus on the details in the illustrations. Ask them specific questions to let them scan the full poster:

o How many vehicles do you see in the picture?

o How many people are wearing something on their heads?

o How many different things do you see that people are wearing on their heads?

o Can you count how many people you see in each story? In the whole poster?

o Can you check who looks happy, sad, angry, or afraid?

o How many different colours do you see in the clothes?

o In how many ways are people moving? (on foot, in a wheelchair, by car, etc.)

Looking for more ways to use this panel? Discover the alternative game variation here: 

• Facing Trauma: Building the stories of Ezra, Elias, Atid & Satya, Samir & Viktoria - StreetSmart Play

• Practice listening and comprehension skills through audio and visual storytelling.
• Practice empathy and personal connection by relating to the stories of the six characters.
• Learn to be creative