TRI's Ambassadors of the Year: 2023
These last two years have been filled with tragedy, heartache, and healing. TRI’s mission continues to be actualized in many places around the world to mitigate the suffering from gun violence, disasters, and war. We do not do this alone. Since TRI's inception, there has been a generosity that TRI has received from many individuals and organizations around the world. There is a wider net of people and organizations, beyond those who work at our organization, who have gone above and beyond to help spread the mission and healing models of TRI.
Now more than ever, we see value in highlighting and honoring just a few examples of those who have worked diligently to use our models to bring light and healing to individuals and communities who have suffered greatly. Every year, we recognize an Individual Ambassador and an Organizational Ambassador who have worked tirelessly to help strengthen communities through the use of the Trauma and Community Resiliency Models. This year, we have selected two individual ambassadors to represent years 2022-2023.
Please join us in honoring Samuel Habimana, Inez Tiger, and EdCamp Ukraine.
Sam Habimna, BSc, MPH
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Mr. Samuel Habimana holds a BSc, MPH, and is a Ph.D. candidate at Loma Linda University, School of Behavioral Health. He is the Founder and Executive Director of the Rwanda Resilience and Grounding Organization.
As a Rwandan and the first in his ancestry to pursue graduate education, Mr. Habimana is married to Uwase Estella, with two sons, Archie Byson Habimana (three and a half years old) and Dwight Kanimba Habimana (three months old).
He is a licensed clinical psychologist in Rwanda and holds a Master's in Public Health from the University of Rwanda. He is a Ph.D. candidate at the School of Behavioral Health, Loma Linda University (LLU), in California.
Raised by a farmer and parents who did not have the advantage of education in a rural area of the northern province of Rwanda, Mr. Habimana grew up with seven siblings. He experienced displacement as a refugee during less than five years of childhood, moving from his home country to the Democratic Republic of Congo and back to Rwanda.
Living through civil wars until age 10, his journey reflects a deep commitment to academic excellence and humanitarian efforts.
Mr. Habimana's journey with the Community Resiliency Model (CRM)® began in 2015. The training teams who went to Rwanda and then to Tanzania for additional training included Eva Nagel, Mary Barrett, Elaine Miller-Karas, Nancy Sokolow and Wendy Flick. Mr. Habimana received CRM skills training certification in Arusha, Tanzania, in October 2015, contributing to the extension of resilience and trauma healing in his Rwandan community and internationally. Following CRM training, Mr. Habimana founded Rwanda Resilience and Grounding Organization (RRGO) to propagate CRM for individual self-healing and community well-being. Since 2015, he has collaborated with the Trauma Resource Institute (TRI), focusing on capacity building and securing funding to aid his community in trauma healing, resilience development, and fostering social cohesion.
Mr. Habimana has been actively advancing these objectives within Rwanda, conducting training sessions for diverse groups such as students affiliated with associations of genocide survivors, community health workers, genocide survivors, perpetrators, returnees, and healthcare providers. The overarching aim has consistently been to facilitate self-healing and promote community resilience. Through workshops, training programs, and televised presentations, he has addressed the mental health repercussions of the tragic events and genocide in Rwanda. These initiatives aim to guide Rwandans in overcoming mental health challenges, building resilience, and fostering social cohesion and reconciliation.
Mr. Habimana's impactful efforts have reached a significant audience, with over five thousand individuals receiving in-person Community Resiliency Model training or learning about CRM through his televised presentations on Rwandan national TV and Flash TV Rwanda , as well as at conferences in Kigali, Rwanda. He actively engaged in international training and consulting endeavors related to the CRM across Africa. Notably, in 2015, Mr. Habimana led training sessions in Njiri village, Arusha, aimed at capacity-building and fostering self-agency among the nuns residing in Njiri village and the women heading the organization involved in crafting handmade goods. His commitment extended to Sierra Leone, specifically in Waterloo, in February 2016. In response to the mental health repercussions and the need for capacity-building among the victims of the Ebola pandemic and civil wars that had deeply impacted the Sierra Leone community, Mr. Habimana conducted CRM trainings at the Waterloo Adventist Hospital. This initiative was spearheaded by Dr. Buckles Beverly, the Dean and team leader of the Trauma Team from the School of Behavioral Health at Loma Linda University.
In July 2019, Mr. Habimana formalized a contractual agreement with World Concern International, bringing his expertise to Niamey, Niger. During this engagement, he conducted training sessions on the Community Resiliency Model for World Concern personnel. The emphasis was on addressing trauma and depression while enhancing self-care capacity, specifically targeting survivors of wars and conflicts, as well as individuals from Western Africa. In August 2018, he presented research on the role of Community Resiliency Model workshops in Trauma Healing among 1994 Tutsi Genocide Survivors in Rwanda at the 4th World Congress of Resilience in Marseille, France, and the paper was published in 2021 (Habimana, S. et al., 2021).
In the current year, in collaboration with RRGO, funded by Rotary International, Victoria Park Rotary Club, Butare Rotary Club, and TRI, Mr. Habimana implemented a project to restore peace and compassion among Rwandan genocide survivors and ex-prisoners. This project involved Community Resiliency Model skills training and laughter yoga exercises conducted over three days in 15 villages in Rwanda. The CRM skills had a significant impact, benefiting over 350 genocide survivors, local leaders and perpetrators who participated in CRM training sessions in Rwanda's southern, western, and eastern provinces. The outcomes of the CRM intervention were remarkable, notably reducing post-traumatic stress disorder and depression, promoting social cohesion, and enhancing resiliency capacities for both survivors and perpetrators.
Mr. Habimana is working in the CRM lab at Loma Linda University, his doctoral research focuses on "Psycho-social Factors in Survivors and Perpetrators of the 1994 Rwandan Genocide against Tutsi: The Role of the Community Resiliency Model in Helping Build Resilience and Social Cohesion." Collaborating with committee members and research mentors, Drs. Susanne Montgomery, Zephone Lister, Kimberly Freeman, and Mr. Habimana aim to contribute valuable insights to this critical area. He has been presenting the preliminary findings of his research in both regional research symposiums: Advancing Evidence-based Intervention for Mental Health, Child Development, and Parenting on September 20-23 in Kigali, Rwanda; and internationally at the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies (ISTSS): Scalability Strategies in addressing the impact of trauma worldwide, on November 1-4 in Los Angeles, California.
Inez Tiger, LMFT
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Inez Tiger is a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and the Director of Wellness at The Rabbi Jacob Pressman Academy, a Jewish Day school in Los Angeles. Originally from South Africa, Ms. Tiger received her BA in Education at the Johannesburg College of Education and emigrated to the United States in 1989.
Ms. Tiger has over three decades of experience working in the field of education and has served in many capacities, including having taught elementary and middle school students. After receiving her M.A. in Marriage, Family and Child Therapy from Pacific Oaks College, she moved into the role as the middle school counselor and later as the middle school principal. Throughout this time, Ms. Tiger was a facilitator and trainer in the practice of Council. Currently, as the Director of Wellness, she develops the Social Emotional Learning curriculum for K-8th grade; coaches teachers, students and parents; and affects school culture. Outside of school hours, Ms. Tiger works in her own private practice.
Ms. Tiger has been trained in the Trauma Resiliency Model (TRM)® and has been certified as a Community Resiliency Model (CRM)® Teacher since 2018. She has since become a CRM Senior Trainer. Soon after becoming a certified CRM Teacher, Ms. Tiger (with Susan Reedy, LMFT, CRM Senior Trainer) presented at the Trauma Sensitive Schools Conference on the model in Atlanta. By 2019, Ms. Tiger brought the CRM skills to her K-8 school through the SEE Learning curriculum from Emory University.
When Covid hit and the school went into lockdown in 2020, Ms. Tiger and her wellness team doubled down on teaching CRM skills for students, faculty and staff. Every Zoom session began with one of the CRM questions: What or who is helping you get through this time? What or who uplifts you? What or who gives you strength? Everyone knew the power of a Resource, Grounding, Tracking and a variety of CRM skills to get back into their OK Zone. Ms. Tiger developed a number of online CRM tools to use with children as a means to help support parents and teachers during that time. These trauma-informed skills were instrumental in helping the school community collectively navigate the pandemic. Following Covid, school staff witnessed high levels of dysregulation, a lack of social skills, and ruptured relationships in many adults and students. Ms. Tiger found that the CRM skills have been invaluable in helping faculty and students navigate the post-traumatic path from Covid. In the summer of 2023, Ms. Tiger trained the middle school advisors and many faculty.
When the war broke out in Israel on October 7, 2023, Ms. Tiger looked to apply her CRM skills internationally. She approached the Sagol (Purple) School at Reichman University in Israel with whom she worked previously. Ms. Tiger initiated a collaboration between TRI and the school to provide a Humanitarian Response CRM workshop for their staff.
With the significant rise of anti-semitism and Islamophobia, Ms. Tiger also connected TRI and NewGround to provide another Humanitarian Response CRM workshop for their community. New Ground is a community-building organization that creates, connects and empowers Jewish and Muslim relationships in America from which Ms. Tiger is a graduate. Ms. Tiger was recognized with the New Ground Changemaker Award in 2020.
Additionally, she and her wellness team used their CRM skills to provide emotional, spiritual, and physical care to the parents, students and faculty who are all directly and indirectly connected to Israel.
Ms. Tiger has received many awards recognizing her dedication to youth and teens. In 2004, she was awarded the Milken Jewish Educator Award. This award recognizes education professionals who are making outstanding contributions to the Jewish and secular education of students. This award calls upon others in the profession to emulate the high standards of those honored for their intelligence, scholarship, creativity and compassion.
In 2014, Ms. Tiger was awarded the JQ Trailblazer Award for her work with middle school students. This award honors individuals for their advocacy, allyship, and artistry that has inspired the Jewish community to be more inclusive and welcoming to LGBTQ+ Jews and their allies.
Ms. Tiger is driven day in and day out by her personal mission: supporting people to create powerful new narratives through stories of resilience, connection and well-being. Partner to Brian, and mother to Gabe and Yzzy, she enjoys connecting deeply through collaborating with friends and creating art. You can often find her on a nice walk with their dog, Chase.
Dr. Oleksandr Elkin
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As a leader in the field of informal education with 45,000+ community members representing every 2nd school of the country, EdCamp Ukraine implements approaches aimed at: (a) improving the qualifications of school educators through EdCamp format events, (b) supporting the Ukrainian education reform through conceptualizing and implementing the New Ukrainian School, and (c) adapting and applying best international education practices.
EdCamp Ukraine has always aspired to promote and enhance social and emotional learning among Ukrainian educators; to raise awareness of and engagement in civic activities like human rights issues, civic education, nondiscrimination, inclusion, digital and media literacy, education in crisis; to reach broader community of educators and beyond, and inspire networking.
Since the day the war in Ukraine began, EdCamp Ukraine has launched a number of initiatives to support Ukrainian educators, parents and children through both humanitarian aid and psychosocial support. Their humanitarian support for educators included -- in the first months of the full-scale invasion -- providing teachers, who had lost their homes or belongings or who were displaced, with gadgets they could use to continue teaching in an online format. Their psychosocial support efforts have been much broader and included:
• Support calls with TRI during the first eight months of the full-scale invasion, where teachers and parents could ask questions about how best to support themselves and the children during and after highly traumatic experiences like shelling, occupation, displacements, or living abroad as refugees;
• Resiliency Tolokas — online meetings with globally renowned experts on well-being, resiliency, and mental health (e.g., Elaine Miller-Karas), during which presenters share with Ukrainian teachers and parents their expertise and skills on how to support themselves and children during these difficult times;
• Community Resiliency Model (CRM)® trainings for Ukrainian educators, education managers, and civil society representatives that enable the participants with transferrable skills for fostering resiliency and well-being that they can share further with any individuals or groups they work with. Two cohorts of up to 60 persons total have been trained as of November 2023;
• SEE Learning introduction across Ukraine has continued and started to be scaled. SEE Learning (especially Chapter 2 outlining CRM skills) is instrumental in teaching Ukrainian students and teachers to support themselves in difficult times and to develop compassion towards themselves and others. A cohort of SEE Learning trainers has been trained, who subsequently taught SEE Learning to over 300 Ukrainian educators from over 150 Ukrainian schools in 12 offline three-day trainings;
• POVIR — the national educational platform for bridging learning gaps caused by the war, occupation, and displacement. The platform aims at putting together students who want to make for their educational losses in key subjects like math, Ukrainian and English languages, and teachers who are willing to act as tutors and group mentors; this cooperation focuses not only on academic learning, but also on further development of resiliency and social and emotional skills in students. The service is free of charge for students, and teachers’ fees are paid from the project budget.
The organization has been working with government and state educational agencies at conceptualizing and implementing the New Ukrainian school educational reform in Ukraine and the Postwar Recovery & Development Plan. EdCamp professional development format events are highly innovative and were included in the 2019-2021 Top 100 innovations worldwide in the field of education by the international educational NGO HundrED. The organization’s activity has been noted by OECD, World Bank, School Based Family Counselling Oxford Symposium, and other international institutions.
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Between 2016 and 2020, Dr. Oleksandr Elkin served as an adviser to three Ministers of Education and Science of Ukraine and a member of two cohorts of Public Council of the Ministry. In 2021, he became a member of Presidential Advisory Council on Promoting the Development of the General Secondary Education System, and in 2022 an expert of the secondary education working group for the National Council for the Recovery of Ukraine from the War.
As a co-author of the New Ukrainian School concept and state standards, Dr. Elkin is currently participating in initiatives aimed at reforming Ukraine’s secondary education. He supervised implementation of a non-discriminatory assessment of textbooks and school programs, integrity tools promotion among schools, and institutional research to improve teacher professional development and reduce bureaucratization at schools. He was instrumental in the demonopolization reform of teachers’ professional development and the launch of the EdWay innovative platform designed to support the reform. Dr. Elkin has been advocating social and emotional skills with Emory University's SEE Learning program in Ukraine. He is the National project manager in Ukraine for OECD international Survey on Social and Emotional Skills. He is also the co-founder of the educational platform POVIR for overcoming educational gaps and losses.
In 2021, Oleksandr was ranked among the 100 most influential Ukrainians by FOCUS magazine and named Ukrainian Prometheus in education by NV media. In 2022 he and the team received the award for the best practice in school-based family counseling from Oxford Symposium. Additionally, Dr. Elkin is a founding curator of Kharkiv Hub of Global Shapers community, the World Economic Forum; he was also one of Ukrainian delegates at the 2014 Forum in Davos, Switzerland. He is the Global Dignity Country Chair for Ukraine and serves as a board member of V. N. Karazin Kharkiv National University and Jewish cultural center Beith Dan.
Dr. Elkin has a solid academic foundation, with a Ph.D. in Technical Sciences, M.A. in Computer Sciences and M.A. in Economics & Entrepreneurship and has had 15+ years of management experience in education, IT, and non-profits, having written more than 50 research articles, patents, and educational publications.
Finally, Dr. Elkin is an alumnus of the Leader in Education Program of Singaporean National Institute of Education and the U.S. Congress Open World Leadership Center program, a Management 3.0, a Ken Blanchards’s SLII, and a PMI standards practitioner, a SEE Learning certified facilitator and a Community Resiliency Model certified teacher. In 2022, he entered the postdoctoral program of the Institute of Problems of Education of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine for educational, pedagogical sciences, working on research titled “Theoretical and methodological principles of developing soft skills in students by means of Social, Emotional, and Ethical Learning.” The same year, he started earning his professional master's degree in Sustainability, Entrepreneurship, and Technology, which is implemented in cooperation between two universities — Tomorrow University of Applied Sciences (Berlin) and WU Executive Academy (Vienna).