| Description |
If one is faced with the daunting challenge of climbing Mount Everest or entering a battlefield, the best option is to follow the lead of someone who has done it before, rather than someone who has only read about it. Such is the case with current trends in addressing human rights interventions for self-sabotage, traumatic ordeal, and suicide (SOS) in conflict-ridden societies. Many well-meaning leaders and agencies implement political Band-Aids instead of following the direction of those most capable of addressing the core problem. As trauma is the impetus of conflict, and self-sabotage and suicide are natural consequences, logic dictates that individuals who have experienced these ordeals are our best resource for a sustainable solution. When this element of raw humanity is strengthened through overcoming personal challenges and in learning how to heal, survivors become the best teachers of resilience for others who struggle. The purpose of life is learning to hold onto hope through relationships. Hence, "Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime" (Chinese proverb). Training members of conflict-ridden communities simple methods of healing selfsabotage, traumatic ordeal, and suicide (SOS), which are rooted in identity and ideology, will curb perpetual conflict and help reduce the almost one million deaths by suicide globally each year (WHO, 2018). In reference to Alan Turing, the socially challenged genius behind computer technology, "Sometimes it is the people no one imagines anything of who do the things that no one can imagine" (The Imitation Game, 2015). A grass roots approach of spreading the word and cultivating resources via social media and digital diplomacy is the best opportunity to create a social justice movement to address these issues. This approach will harness social compliance by employing peer pressure, authority, and ideology toward a positive outcome. This thesis paper outlines and combines multidisciplinary research in the fields of psychology, strategic communication, social science, and business process management to uncover three primary sources of conflict at home and abroad: self-sabotage, traumatic ordeal, and suicide (SOS), which perpetuates intergenerational trauma. Then it explores gaps in current humanitarian approaches, additional necessary research, how to effectively prioritize and address these issues through community effort, and how to motivate individuals and communities to take action for sustainable change. An explanation of what was found and a way to enact the goals and objectives revealed through the research is outlined through a four phase, nine step strategic communication plan. This plan was produced to create change locally and can be scaled up globally, while retrieving data to refine the process as the plan continues to unfold. The goal of psychology is to reveal and potentially heal human dysfunction. Conversely, the goal of strategic communication is to effectively manipulate human dysfunction. This thesis will show how these twin disciplines can work together for the greater good and reveal that crisis manifests the birth of hope and recovery. |
