The RSPOPUK Fellowship Programme

27 June 2011

by Dieudonné Manirakiza

The divide between the rich and poor came up a few times as a theme during the 2011 Denver Worldwork. This divide results in the exploitation of the poor by the rich at different levels of society. The consequences are that the rich are getting richer while the poor are getting poorer. This situation gets even worse when the rich are not aware of the sufferings of the poor or simply because the rich don’t want to know. This might be due to lack of awareness or the feeling of helplessness in front of the whole issue of poverty in the world. The feeling of helplessness exists on both sides when the poor are trapped in endless poverty.

 There are lots of examples in showing this divide between the rich and the poor and not enough people or organisations are taking adequate steps to reduce the suffering of the poor by alleviating their poverty.

Although the United Kingdom is one of the richest countries in the world, yet this divide between the rich and the poor is still clearly visible. Across the country, you find poor areas and rich areas, schools in rich areas perform better than schools in poor areas. There’s much better health in rich areas in comparison to poor areas. The crime rates are higher in poor areas than in rich areas and this seems to be an endless cycle due to lack of enough awareness to make positive and solid changes.

If the rich were to reach out to the poor and work together, things might shift for the better, poverty could be eradicated or at least sensibly reduced.

One of the schools of psychotherapy in the United Kingdom, the Research Society for Process-Oriented Psychology UK (RSPOPUK) has decided to address this issue by opening doors to less fortunate students who otherwise wouldn’t be able to afford the psychotherapy training.

For the time being, two students, Dieudonné Manirakiza, originally from Burundi and Rona Ribeiro originally from Brazil both from minority ethnic groups have been accepted to the training programme, they have been encouraged to study , research and develop a Worldwork project including physical health, mental health, marginalisation of communities or groups. This is a psychotherapy training which also involves enabling diverse groups to engage in a constructive dialogue. This will benefit the school, the students, their respective communities and the world.

Psychotherapy is still seen as a service for privileged groups, one the GPs in my local town commented that “we have to prescribe tablets for depression some times when it’s not necessary, simply because psychotherapy is not easily accessible”.

The fellowship programme does not have any funding but the RSPOPUK faculty decided to go ahead with it by asking teachers and other diplomates to contribute by offering reduced rates up to 70% to the fellows. Individual students have also contributed in different ways. Now the two students can have access to the training, seminars and therapy sessions.