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Outlook: The baby chimpanzees helping me heal

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Mama Zawadi smiles up to the treetops as she holds three baby chimpanzees

11/05/2022 GMT

The baby chimpanzees helping me heal

BBC World Service - Outlook, The baby chimpanzees helping me heal

Mama Zawadi takes care of orphaned chimps caught up in the violence in DR Congo

Mama Zawadi has looked after more than 20 rescued baby chimpanzees at a sanctuary in DR Congo. They're helping her deal with her own traumas.

Mama Zawadi di Balanza grew up in South Kivu in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. It's an area where over 100 rebel groups operate, and it's a very dangerous place to be a woman. When Mama Zawadi was just 16, she and her school friend were abducted and raped by an armed rebel group and they were held for three months. Although she managed to escape, she would suffer two more violent attacks. By the time the third attack happened, Mama Zawadi had started working with Lorena Aguirre Cadarso, a trained psychologist from Spain who also runs the Primates Rehabilitation Centre in South Kivu. Lorena decided to take Mama to the Sanctuary to meet the baby chimpanzees - they too were deeply traumatised by what they had suffered. Mama Zawadi says working with the baby chimpanzees has helped her heal. An award-winning film called Mama has been made about her by film-maker Pablo de la Chica. The interpreter was Estelle Doyle.

Sean Laidlaw rescued a puppy he called Barrie, from Syria in 2018, while he was working as a bomb disposal expert. He fought a long and difficult battle to get her home to the UK to be with him, and since then the two have become inseparable. He tells Outlook's Saskia Edwards how Barrie is helping him overcome his PTSD. He has written a book about their relationship called Barrie: How a rescue dog and her owner saved each other. This interview was first broadcast in October 2019. 

If you have been affected by any of the issues highlighted in this programme, you can find information about where to get help and support - in confidence - on the BBC Action line website and at Befrienders.org. 

Get in touch: outlook@bbc.com

Presenter:  Emily Webb

(Photo: Mama Zawadi with her baby chimpanzees. Credit: Mama documentary/Salon Indien Films)

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