Almudena Toral: Documentary films that explore trauma -- and make space for healing | TED Fellows

[SHAPE YOUR FUTURE]

It’s a warm morning and I’m surrounded by six-year-old children in a classroom.

One by one, they cheerfully hug one of their friends

who just came back home from a trip.

They comment on her new dress and her new hairstyle.

But the girl does nothing.

She looks towards the distant horizon, eyes fixed.

The kids start wondering why she doesn't speak.

The girl's name is Adayanci,

and the trip she has just returned from is not a vacation.

She left Guatemala with her dad in May 2018 for the United States.

Several months later, she's back, but she has gone silent.

I'm filming this, feeling overwhelmed,

and finding it difficult to look through the viewfinder of my camera.

Her post-traumatic stress disorder is so visible.

I am in tears.

I am a journalist who documents aftermaths for a living.

The impact, the invisible consequences.

What happens when the media spotlight is gone?

That's why I've spent hundreds of hours listening to and watching people

deeply affected by trauma.

Survivors of trafficking, child rape, gang slavery, forced labor

and immigration enforcement.

Different from the job of psychiatrist and aid workers,

I've dedicated my life to listening to them

to make their stories public,

in first person, in their own voice.

Despite all of the limitations of words and photographs and films,

I believe better stories about the effects of trauma

in people's lives are essential.

They can show us the real consequences of seemingly abstract government policies.

They can trigger understanding across political divides

and awaken our universal sense of empathy.

Survivors like the now deceased Jennifer

taught me that brutal bondage does not happen far away.

David taught me the horrors refugees flee from

are scarier than any obstacle in the quest for safety.

Adayanci brought home for me that governments of developed nations

also harm using trauma as a weapon.

The word "trauma" comes from ancient Greek.

It's the word for "injury".

It's the psychological wound that stays

after something really terrible has happened to us.

It affects our body, our mind,

our memory and our sense of safety in the world.

War, violence, kidnapping, torture,

they are all causes of trauma.

But it does not only happen far away, far from you.

In the United States, for example,

several large-scale community studies

have shown that exposure to violence and terror,

like rape, domestic abuse or trafficking

are common and damaging in times of peace.

What I witnessed in that classroom in Guatemala

was the aftermath of the zero-tolerance policy.

It separated children from parents at the US-Mexico border.

Adayanci was sent to a shelter and two foster families

while her dad was deported.

In her despair, she took a pair of scissors

and cut her own hair as a form of protest.

A psychologist diagnosed her with acute stress,

warning it would become post-traumatic stress disorder

the longer time passed.

The damage of this type of separation

at an early age,

just like other forms of abuse,

can be permanent if the child doesn't receive help.

In order to justify this kind of violence,

there is a will to make certain people seem very different from us.

Evil, rapists, animals, criminals.

Stripping off their humanity

is a deliberate technique used by governments

with plenty of examples in history books.

In this case, the so-called evil, criminal and animal

was a shattered six-year-old girl.

We published Adayanci's documentary.

The story won a World Press Photo award

thanks to which Adayanci is receiving therapy in Guatemala.

She's on her slow way back to recovery, dancing and daydreaming.

But most others have not gotten access to care.

Hundreds haven't even been reunited with their families.

The trauma these policies cost can have generational effects.

Even in Adayanci's fortunate case,

the family has no institutional support and is in deep debt.

We humans heal from trauma through feeling safe,

through storytelling

and through establishing connection with others in our communities.

For this little girl reframing the story she will tell herself

it's part of her healing.

For us as a society,

reframing her story and pressuring our governments to do better

is part of reclaiming our dignity as equals.

Thank you.