Hello, hello!
We are a group of art therapy students at Western Sydney University fundraising for our former classmate, Lobna Deghedy, who is currently back in Egypt providing trauma-informed art therapy services for displaced Palestinians in Cairo. Follow our Instagram - @canvas.of.care for more updates!All funds raised for this campaign will go towards supporting Lobna's initiative to provide free art therapy services to Palestinian families and training community leaders in Cairo. Your support will fund art supplies and transportation costs, and help keep the initiative sustainable.

Fundraiser Film Screening

"Where Olive Trees Weep" Film Screening
with Post-Screening Discussion
on Trauma, Healing, and Justice

Date: 21 September, 2024 (Sat)
Time: 6-8:30pm (doors at 6pm, screening starts 6:30pm)
Venue: Alexandria, NSW
Accessibility: the venue is up a flight of stairs and is not wheelchair accessibleEntry by donationThe address will be emailed to participants. Sign-up to attend the film screening fundraiser of "Where Olive Trees Weep"!(Poster design by Eliza Gooch)

Directed by Maurizio Benazzo, Zaya Benazzo, with Ashira Darwish, Amira Hass, Gabor Maté, the documentary follows the 2022 journey of therapists, journalists, and grassroots leaders in the occupied West Bank, and bear witness to Palestinians' stories of resilience and struggles living under Israeli occupation.Trigger Warning: violence, trauma, heavy emotional content. While these are (unfortunately) very common themes for content on this topic, we still strongly advise participants to be prepared and take care to check in on themselves and each other before, during, and after the event. Only by collective care can we sustainably move forward together <3

fundraiser

Lobna's Canvas of Care:
Art Therapy for Palestinians in Cairo

"Lobna's Canvas of Care" is a mental health initiative to support Palestinians from Gaza now displaced and living as refugees in Cairo. Led by Lobna Deghedy, an experienced visual artist and trauma-informed art therapist, this project offers two services:

The Need

There is a massive and urgent need for mental health support for Palestinians who have been able to leave Gaza for Egypt. Due to the ongoing genocide being inflicted on the Palestinian people, these people all carry, to varying degrees, the effects of experiencing these traumatic events.As Gaza evacuees have "undetermined" refugee status in Egypt and because of the struggles of the Egyptian economy there is a lack of any funding for mental health support amongst Gazan evacuees. There is also very limited local mental health support available. The living situation of the Palestinian Gazan community in Cairo makes it even harder to access therapeutic support. If a family or individual is not in secure accommodation and financially stable their participation can and often is interrupted by the high costs of transportation, difficulties over accessibility from different neighborhoods, unsettled living situation and demands form other family members.Much of the very limited therapeutic support available is non-trauma informed talk therapy and typically the client refrains from repeating the experience due to the re-traumatising effects they suffered during or after the session.With these considerations in mind, creative modalities and therapies that do not focus on verbal recounting of experiences will be prioritised in these programs, including art therapy, EMDR, and Transformational Breathwork.

Art Therapy House Calls for Palestinian Families

• In-home art therapy sessions for families with children.• Helps families process trauma, reset their nervous systems, and develop coping strategies.• Further introduce families to receive more in-depth support from trained psychotherapists, psychologists and psychiatrists.• Aims to support 12 families through 3-session cycles.

This initiative is led by Lobna Deghedy to conduct house calls to provide Art Therapy sessions for Palestinian families from Gaza who are now in Cairo. The focus will be on families with children – whether they are children with a single parent (often the mother), or with both parents present. The aim is to provide support to the whole family, especially children who have almost little to no support. Due to their undetermined residence and unstable living conditions as refugees, many children are not being admitted into schools. Many of them do not have the electronic devices that could help them access online schooling and support. The goal of this initiative is to provide support to these families so that they can talk about and share their experiences and knowledge with other individuals, families, and the growing Palestinian community in Egypt.

Group Art Therapy Training for Community Leaders

• Trains community leaders of Gazan Palestinians in Cairo in trauma-informed art therapy skills.• Targets Palestinian artists, musicians, journalists, teachers, and medical professionals, who can then share knowledge and support others in their community.• Aims to train groups of 6-12 members, through 2 six-week cycles.

This project aims to train a group who are economically solvent (as they are able to plan and prioritise the time this requires) and would normally play a prominent role in the community, to gain vital skills in supporting other Palestinians in Cairo to care for their mental health and process trauma. The group involves experiential group art therapy training to collectively
experience and internalise trauma-informed practices. This process will assist in coping with the catastrophic ongoing trauma of the genocide inflicted on Gaza. So as to reduce the primary and secondary effects of their nervous system dysregulation and hopefully avoid further mental health complications in the near and foreseeable future. After the group experience, participants will be able to share some of their learning and help signpost / lead others towards mental health support opportunities within the community.

About Lobna Deghedy

"This initiative is 100% a labour of love. I am a visual artist, educator and trauma-informed art therapist. I have 3 years experience in group Psychotherapy and 2 years experience in Group Art Therapy and provide mental health support for both adults and children. Individually and in groups.I taught Digital art and design at the American University in Cairo in 2015 - 2017, before leaving to Australia in 2018 where I acquired my Graduate Certificate in Art Therapy at Western Sydney University.I am qualified to provide mental health support in community based organisations in Australia and am currently undertaking my Art Therapy Masters Degree at La Trobe University in Melbourne. Since August 2022 I am a Students Services officer, providing support and administrative assistance to distressed and struggling university students in Sydney, Australia.I have been providing mental health support for Palestinian Families evacuated from Gaza into Cairo, Egypt since March 2024. I started by volunteering, donating my time, effort and art materials. I made house calls - carrying around my art therapy kit of materials and visiting families that the groups I volunteer with had referred onto me. Later on, I received some donations for more art supplies. Then a venue offered to host one session free of charge and the costs of the second session were donated.With this initiative I hope to fill part of the significant gap in the mental health support circles that provide services to Palestinians in Egypt. This gap comprised of the almost total absence of Group Psychotherapy for Palestinian evacuees.Given the catastrophic events and trauma inflicted on the Gazan population and the lack of organised refugee services here in Egypt, the growing number of evacuees and growing need for mental health support compelled me to find a way to bring life into my initiative with the help of Ahmed Saqer and other members of the beautiful Palestinian Gazan evacuee community here in Cairo."

How to Donate

You can donate via Beem: @helplobna. Sending messages of support and love via our Instagram - @canvas.of.care is also a great morale booster for the team and the Palestinian participants in Cairo!Due to the current economic situation in Egypt, Lobna’s current cost for running each program averages 2,000 Euros per week. It is difficult for us to raise enough funds to cover this cost, but any little amount will help!While we acknowledge that there are more immediate calls for donations out there, especially those supporting Palestinians who have not yet evacuated, as art therapy students we are also deeply aware of the importance and urgency of providing accessible mental health supports to those who have experienced (and are still undergoing) grave traumatic events.(We will provide updates to the fundraiser via our our Instagram page — more events and art raffles to come!)Amount raised so far: 1050 AUD