Abdel Hamid Afana
Contact
4418 Hamel
Pierrefonds H9H 2x8
Quebec, Canada
Tel: 514-839-5588
hamid03_ab [at] yahoo.com (Email)
Areas of Expertise
Mental health, trauma, torture, refugees and community interventions
Profile
Abdel hamid Afana, Ph.D. is the President of the International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims (IRCT), and Director of Training and Research Department at the Gaza Community Mental Health Programme. Dr. Afana is Chairing the Board of Directors for Jesoor organisation that deals with community rehabilitation to trauma and human rights abuse victims.
He believes that mental health and human rights are inseparable and that mental health professionals have a role in community development and building bridges for peace through health. These ideas are reflected in his clinical, community work and publications. He is the founder of a postgraduate diploma in Community Mental Health and Human Rights, where he actively participate in the curriculum design, planning, implementation, monitoring, evaluation and supervising Diploma candidates. Dr. Afana is a member of national, regional and international organisations and professional bodies in fields related to health and human rights.
Dr. Afana published various articles related to mental health, human rights, trauma and currently investigating the long term psychosocial consequences of political violence, cultural and social representation of traumatic experiences, survival strategies and dynamics of social support.
Chantal Robillard
Contact
Douglas Mental Health University Institute, Network Coordinator
6875 LaSalle Blvd., Verdun, Quebec
Canada H4H 1R3
Tel.: (1-514) 761-6131 (#3492)
Fax: (1-514) 762-3049
chantal.robillard [at] mcgill.ca (Email)
Profile
Chantal Robillard received her PhD degree (Anthropology) at the Universit茅 de Montr茅al(2005), and further postgraduate training in Culture & Mental Health (Douglas - 捆绑SM社区) and Sexology (Universit茅 du Qu茅bec 脿 Montr茅al). She is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Institute of Population Health (University of Ottawa), as well as a research associate within the TGH Program. Chantal has actively participated in TGH teaching seminars on gendered ethnography and on the integration of gender in mental health research. In collaboration with D. Pedersen, she is conducting a study on the globalization of migrant workers in the sex industry (including trafficking/smuggling of women and forced labour) and their emergent health needs in Bolivia, Peru and Montreal, Canada.
One of her areas of expertise relevant to the TGH program is the cross-cultural study of stigma and social discrimination in persons with severe mental illness as well as on gender-based analysis of mental health outcomes (e.g. PTSD). Within our program, she has contributed to the building of multilevel partnerships and strengthening capacity in qualitative and ethnographic (global, gendered, urban) methods in combination with the use of a feminist approach (Interscetional Framework of Analysis) allowing to put back the everyday experiences of research users into social and public policies working towards empowerment of research participants.