Still feeling excited, if a bit overwhelmed!

Well it has been a really interesting first couple of weeks at the helm of WHRIN. Lots of great contacts are being made around the world and it certainly feels like the organisation is moving in the right direction. We have various projects in the pipeline for 2013 such as developing country reports that will help to assess the scale of witchcraft accusations and human rights violations in different countries. It looks like the first country may be Nepal where accusations against women are widespread. We are looking to develop this report with Nepalese NGO – PPR Nepal- who have been active in this for some time now.

We are also looking forward to developing the training programme in the UK and I will be travelling to London next week to meet some experienced colleagues in order to discuss how we can develop an excellent programme for practitioners in the UK. Watch this space for more updates!

I must admit though that whilst I had some knowledge of the scale of the problem around the world I was quite unprepared for discovering the true scale of witchcraft accusations and the subsequent, often horrific, abuses that occur due to this belief. You will see from our Latest News page that there are cases being reported nearly every day and these must surely only represent the tip of the ice-berg and a very anglophone ice-berg at that! It can be quite depressing stuff to be honest, reading these reports regularly and I will be trying my best to keep us all sane and positive feeling by focusing as much as possible on the positive interventions taking place around the world over the coming weeks and months.