NE Ohio Connects With Cambodia

Gerard Mullaney – NE Ohio Chapter

The Northeast Ohio Affiliate Chapter has maintained our connection with Cambodia and especially the Maryknoll Mission team there. This connection started during our Friends Across Borders trip (sponsored by Maryknoll Lay Missioners – https://mklm.org/why-go-on-a-mission-immersion-trip/) to Cambodia several years ago. Northeast Ohio Affiliates Jan Alberti, Pam Cibik, Gerry Mullaney, and Kathy Ress, all mental health therapists, met Fr. Kevin Conroy, who is also a trained psychologist.

While visiting mission sites, we learned that Cambodia has suffered a difficult history of war, genocide, and ongoing challenges of poverty and injustice, and has limited human services for its population. The genocide perpetrated by the Khmer Rouge regime in the 1970s included an attempted elimination of the intellectual and professional class.

Father Kevin Conroy, a recent Maryknoll Associate from the Cleveland Diocese, has worked for years in Cambodia to train mental health professionals and to provide psychological services to a traumatized population that also suffers serious mental health problems.

Recently, Father Kevin invited the Northeast Ohio Maryknoll Affiliate chapter to share our knowledge and skills with his mental health staff. We organized a session related to play therapy to be conducted virtually between the Cambodian staff and us at our computers in Northeast Ohio. During the interaction, Kathy and Gerry provided some historical and theoretical background, and Pam and Jan shared practical techniques and applications. Pam’s presentation included numerous games and play exercises. Jan focused on Sand Tray therapy, a tool aimed at helping clients clarify and resolve a  life issue by telling a story in play with figures to help. Jan’s grandson was the star of a video in which Jan demonstrated the Sand Tray process. 

NE Ohio Affiliates connect with Cambodian therapists via Zoom.

A demonstration video helps explain how patients might express themselves through sand play.

Father Kevin’s feedback to our team two weeks after the training confirmed the cross-cultural value of play and the usefulness of play therapy as a tool for self-expression with Cambodian clients. He indicated some enthusiasm on the part of his staff, who immediately checked out the six sand trays for their therapeutic use. The Northeast Ohio team was delighted to connect with Cambodian professionals and, by extension, to be in solidarity with the Cambodian people.   


In addition to our satisfaction with this encounter, we hope this specific experience might be a piece of the transformation that the Affiliate Board is considering in recent discussions. As the Board deliberates about the possible futures of the Affiliates, conversations have included moving beyond the chapter meeting model, encouraging action projects, collaborating with the other Maryknoll entities, and going beyond the boundaries of the US chapters. Wider use of technology presents one path to do this. Our small initiative with Cambodian mental health services shows some of this new thinking, a new way to do mission, a way to share our experience and concern.