Community Healing Spaces

Chai, qahwa, herbal tea or a latte? Which one warms your ❤️?

Tea time with your best friends, family or even strangers at a local gathering is not only fun but can be healing. Whether you’re winding down from a stressful day, connecting with old friends or meeting your future spouse for the first time, grabbing coffee or sharing a cup of tea has served many purposes across cultures and times.

When at a loss for helping Bosnian refugees to process their traumatic experiences, Froma Walsh came up with a brilliant idea of starting a program called CAFES (Coffee/Tea and Family Education & Support). Through this multi-family group format (over a cup of tea of course), CAFES began “offering a compassionate setting to share stories of suffering and struggle, it also affirmed family strengths and resources, such as their courage, endurance, and faith; strong kinship networks and deep concern for loved ones; and determination to rise above their tragedies to forge a new life. Efforts were encouraged to bridge cultures, sustain kinship ties, and gain a sense of belonging in both old and new worlds (Falicov, 2003).”

I want to see more communities creating CAFES for their people. What a beautiful, familiar & collectivistic way of providing a healing space without pushing western/individualistic standards of therapy. We need more of this…therapeutic modalities that make sense to our people. Healing processes that utilize existing forms of connection. ☕️