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  • For the last two and a half years,

  • I'm one of the few, if not the only, child psychiatrist

  • operating in refugee camps, shorelines and rescue boats

  • in Greece and the Mediterranean Sea.

  • And I can say, with great confidence,

  • that we are witnessing a mental-health catastrophe

  • that will affect most of us, and it will change our world.

  • I live in Haifa, but nowadays, I spend most of my time abroad.

  • During my time on the Greek island of Lesbos

  • and on the rescue boats in the Mediterranean,

  • thousands of refugee boats arrived to the shoreline,

  • crowded with more than 1.5 million refugees.

  • One-fourth of them are children,

  • fleeing war and hardship.

  • Each boat carries different sufferings and traumas

  • from Syria, Iraq, Afganistan and different countries in Africa.

  • In the last three years alone,

  • more than 12,000 refugees lost their lives.

  • And hundreds of thousands lost their souls and their mental health

  • due to this cruel and traumatic experience.

  • I want to tell you about Omar,

  • a five-year-old Syrian refugee boy

  • who arrived to the shore on Lesbos on a crowded rubber boat.

  • Crying, frightened, unable to understand what's happening to him,

  • he was right on the verge of developing a new trauma.

  • I knew right away that this was a golden hour,

  • a short period of time in which I could change his story,

  • I could change the story

  • that he would tell himself for the rest of his life.

  • I could reframe his memories.

  • I quickly held out my hands and said to his shaking mother in Arabic,

  • (Arabic) "Ateeni elwalad o khudi nafas."

  • "Give me the boy, and take a breath."

  • His mother gave him to me.

  • Omar looked at me with scared, tearful eyes and said,

  • (Arabic) "Ammo (uncle in Arabic), shu hada?"

  • "What is this?"

  • as he pointed out to the police helicopter hovering above us.

  • "It's a helicopter!

  • It's here to photograph you with big cameras,

  • because only the great and the powerful heroes,

  • like you, Omar, can cross the sea."

  • Omar looked at me, stopped crying and asked me,

  • (Arabic) "Ana batal?"

  • "I'm a hero?"

  • I talked to Omar for 15 minutes.

  • And I gave his parents some guidance to follow.

  • This short psychological intervention

  • decreases the prevalence of post-traumatic stress disorder

  • and other mental health issues in the future,

  • preparing Omar to get an education,

  • join the workforce, raise a family and beyond.

  • How?

  • By stimulating the good memories that will be stored in the amygdala,

  • the emotional storage of the human brain.

  • These memories will fight the traumatic ones,

  • if they are reactivated in the future.

  • To Omar, the smell of the sea will not just remind him

  • of his traumatic journey from Syria.

  • Because to Omar, this story is now a story of bravery.

  • This is the power of the golden hour,

  • which can reframe the trauma and establish a new narrative.

  • But Omar is only one out of more than 350,000 children

  • without the proper mental health support in this crisis alone.

  • Three hundred and fifty thousand children and me.

  • We need mental health professionals

  • to join rescue teams during times of active crisis.

  • This is why my wife and I and friends co-founded "Humanity Crew."

  • One of the few aid organizations in the world

  • that specializes in providing psychosocial aid

  • and first-response mental health interventions

  • to refugees and displaced populations.

  • To provide them with a suitable intervention,

  • we create the four-step approach, a psychosocial work plan

  • that follows the refugees on each step of their journey.

  • Starting inside the sea, on the rescue boats,

  • as mental health lifeguards.

  • Later in the camps, hospitals and through our online clinic

  • that breaks down borders and overcomes languages.

  • And ending in the asylum countries, helping them integrate.

  • Since our first mission in 2015,

  • "Humanity Crew" had 194 delegations

  • of qualified, trained volunteers and therapists.

  • We have provided 26,000 hours of mental health support

  • to over 10,000 refugees.

  • We can all do something to prevent this mental health catastrophe.

  • We need to acknowledge that first aid is not just needed for the body,

  • but it has also to include the mind, the soul.

  • The impact on the soul is hardly visible,

  • but the damage can be there for life.

  • Let's not forget that what distinguishes us humans from machines

  • is the beautiful and the delicate soul within us.

  • Let's try harder to save more Omars.

  • Thank you.

  • (Applause)

  • (Cheers)

  • (Applause)

For the last two and a half years,

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