October Issue

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In this Issue

	PSOT Welcomes a New Director of Operations
	PSOT Client Welcomes Family...Plus 1!
	PSOT Teams up With NYU Dental School to Provide Free Dental Care to Program Clients
	PSOT Client Wins Soccer Scholarship to Local College

In Other News

Dr. Kate Porterfied is going to GTMO with the Military Commission Defense Counsel for an evaluation of two detainees who were placed in Guantanamo as minors. She travels by military cargo jet and is ferried around the island where she goes directly to the detention camps to meet with a client. She expects to travel there several times to meet with the detainees and then make recommendations to their legal teams regarding their psychological condition after years of detention and interrogation. She will ultimately testify in their trials if necessary. She has been thrilled with the opportunity to work with such dedicated lawyers who are doing their all to make sure that the rule of law is followed in Guantanamo.

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PSOT Welcomes a New Director of Operations

Dear Friends of PSOT,

I would like to take the opportunity to introduce myself as the new Director of Operations of the NYU/Bellevue Program for Survivors of Torture (PSOT.) It is a great honor to join the team here, whose work to provide comprehensive care to survivors of torture and their families has inspired me for many years. I bring a variety of experiences that I hope will inform my work managing and providing leadership to the program. I have recently returned to New York after serving for two years as a Peace Corps volunteer in Cuenca, Ecuador where I did HIV prevention with youth and families and organizational development with the first gay and lesbian organization to be formed in the city.

Before my time in Ecuador, I provided leadership to the Soros Advocacy Fellowship for Physicians, first at the Open Society Institute/Soros Foundation and then at Columbia University, where it moved in 2005. This program supported physicians who undertook advocacy projects in heath and human rights. I was responsible for budget oversight, program development, public relations, outreach to potential candidates, and programming for our grantees. In this work I saw countless examples of how those that care for vulnerable communities can be catalysts for social change, drawing upon their experiences with patients to inform policy and advocacy discussions. The opportunity to facilitate important human rights work on the front lines where the Program fights is one of the aspects of the job about which I am most excited.

I enter this position conscious that I am filling the big shoes of Carol Prendergast. We have been in constant communication to make sure that there is a seamless transition here in the Program. Although it is a big job, I am excited about the opportunity to identify and meet the challenge. Thank you for your interest and investment in the Program. Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have questions or concerns at claudia.calhoon@nyumc.org.

Warm Regards,

Claudia Calhoon

PSOT Client Welcomes Family...Plus 1!

On Oct 14th, JFK custom agents helped Fatou Jaw deliver her baby inside terminal 3. Mrs. Jaw and her three other sons flew in from Senegal to reunite with her husband, Ebrima Jaw. Three Customs and Border Protection officers jumped into action and helped bring a baby boy into the world. The Jaws have not chosen a name for the baby yet, but say his middle name will be J.F.K. The 7-pound-13-ounce infant is in stable condition at Jamaica Hospital.

Ebrima Jaw was a former client of the Bellevue/ NYU Program for Survivors of Torture (PSOT). He joined the program in 2005, which at the time he suffered many post trauma symptoms from his unjust imprisonment back in the Gambia. Along with the treatments he received from the program, he also received assistance with his asylum application. He was successfully granted asylum and now is working as a security guard in Manhattan and living in the Bronx.

He served in the National Military back in the Gambia. Due to his ethnicity and his uncle’s involvement with an alleged coupe attempt against president Yahya Jammeh in 1997, Mr. Jaw was discriminated at work and monitored by the government. He was detained twice for questioning; Mr. Jaw was tortured and malnourished during his imprisonment. No charges were ever set against Mr. Jaw and he was never brought to trail during his detention. He was forced to sign a prepared document without the right to see the statement before his release. Through aid from contacts and friends he escaped to Senegal and flew to the United States at the end of 2004.

His wife and children took refuge in Senegal after Mr. Jaw left the Gambia. He is very happy to finally reunite with his family and his fourth son, who was born on American soil.

According to Amnesty International’s 2008 Country report, human rights defenders, journalists, and military personnel remain at risk of arbitrary detention, torture and intimidation by the official security forces. Repression of the right to freedom of expression also intensified. An increasing number of journalists went into hiding following intimidation, threats and harassment by the National Intelligence Agency and government officials. Others were arbitrarily detained for varying periods and then released on bail.

PSOT Teams up With NYU Dental School to Provide Free Dental Care to Program Clients

Hadijatou* is a 49-year-old divorced Nigerien woman whose family forced her to marry at age 12. Her husband later became abusive and would rape, strike, and burn her with cigarettes. She reports one instance when her husband hit her so hard that the blow knocked out several teeth, and Hadijatou reports being unconscious for at least two weeks and having cranial swelling for five months. A neighbor eventually took her to receive medical treatment. Subsequent to this brutality, Hadijatou left her husband in Burkina and returned to her family in Niger. In 2004, she immigrated to the US to escape the unbearable poverty and hunger of her home country. At her six-month follow-up interview with our care coordinator Danielle Allen, Hadijatou reported intense dental pain and bleeding gums upon waking in the morning.  

Though the details of Hadijatou's story are unique, her reported dental pain was not. Danielle began to notice that more and more clients were reporting similar problems. She decided to take action. Since the program's inception, our clients had received free extractions from Bellevue Hospital but they did not have access to the type of comprehensive dental care they so desperately needed. Danielle began to collect a growing number of client testimonials and our Director of Operations Carol Prendergast and Program Director Allen Keller sent this information to NYU Dental School. The Dean of the dental school, Dr. Mark Wolff, generously agreed to arrange an elective class in which fourth year dental students would treat our patients under the supervision of two professors, Dr. June Weiss and Dr. Steve Resnick every Friday morning. Now in it's second month, the dental school has provided comprehensive care to 15 of our clients, most of whom had never been to a dentist before.

For our part, PSOT clinicians have led didactic sessions for the students on subjects ranging from working with interpreters to mental health issues with survivors of torture. We have also invited the students to gain clinical experience by attending our Monday Night Clinic. The students report that they are very happy to provide this service for an under-served population and our clients have expressed sincere gratitude that they no longer have to live with daily pain associated with their trauma history.

PSOT Client Wins Soccer Scholarship to Local College

We first introduced Ibrahim in last year’s winter newsletter. Ibrahim, a young man from Liberia, was orphaned very early as a child, and he fled to Guinea at a young age. He lived in a refugee camp in Guinea, but when rebels started crossing the border, the Guinean community became wary of all refugees. Things grew increasingly dangerous. Eventually, relatives helped him get a visa to come to the United States, and Ibrahim fled to the US soon thereafter.

Ibrahim did not speak a word of English when he began public school here, but by the time he graduated from middle school, he had earned some of the highest academic honors in his class, and had gained admittance to the School of Environmental Studies on Manhattan’s west side. He remembers reading Hamlet for school, not complaining when he was cast as Ophelia in the class recitation, despite the jeering audience. Early on in his high school career, Ibrahim made fast friends with a fellow Liberian, a young man. They are still best friends, though lately they have been spending more time talking on the phone than seeing each other in person. Abdoulaye is finishing his studies at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, where he won a seat on the student council. Last winter, Ibrahim had just received Temporary Protected Status in the U.S., which permitted him to stay in the country but rendered him ineligible for school loans.

As a student at the High School for Environmental Studies in Manhattan, Ibrahim devoted himself to his studies and to soccer. In fact, he can’t remember a time when soccer was not an integral part of his life. That devotion paid off when Ibrahim won a full athletic scholarship to ASA College, playing the position of striker. A typical day for Ibrahim begins with an early morning commute from the Bronx to Brooklyn for soccer practice. Ibrahim attends soccer practice 5 days a week for five hours each day, with games on the weekend. He spends the afternoon resting, and in the evening Ibrahim takes the train in the opposite direction, heading to upstate New York for his overnight job in receiving at a Target store. When I ask him how he will manage his time once school starts in a few weeks, he says he hopes he will be transferred to a Target that is more conveniently located in Brooklyn.

Ibrahim would rather pass the ball to his teammates and watch them score than have all the glory for himself, a quality which has surely helped his team’s record!Ibrahim’s life has never been easy, but he considers himself lucky for the educational and athletic opportunities he has today. As of this newsletter’s publication, ASA had an undefeated record in 5 straight games.