Client: Global Empowerment Mission (GEM)
Challenge: Providing support for a team simultaneously experiencing and addressing the trauma of the Maui wildfires.
Outcome: Fostered team resilience and connection and the support to team members to process their own disaster experience.
Global Empowerment Mission (GEM) is a global organization that responds to natural disasters and conflicts, providing aid for immediate relief and long-term recovery. Following the Maui fires, the GEM team has been assisting those impacted by the wildfires in a variety of ways, including case management and assistance with housing. Many of GEM’s team members are locals who have experienced the disaster firsthand. Having team members who are both survivors and responders means the team is best placed to respond and support the impacted community, but means the team members are carrying the extra weight of their own experience of trauma and community expectation.
GEM turned to Hummingly’s resources, looking for tools that would help their team members navigate the complex emotions and stress associated with their work. The goal was to support the team members in processing their own experience of the fires and the complex recovery while continuing their essential work in the community.
Each week, the GEM team across Maui comes together for a huddle, providing updates on ongoing projects like housing and construction efforts. The team now uses Hummingly tools such as the Cards for Calamity during their huddle to facilitate conversations about the emotional toll of disaster recovery work. Christy Mendoza, a key leader in the Maui Mission who facilitates these conversations, shared that these sessions have been instrumental in giving the team space to acknowledge and process their shared and individual experiences.
"The team has found it incredibly helpful to have a designated time to connect and share their experiences," Christy explained. "It's allowed our employees to realize they’re not alone in what they’re going through, and to gain clarity and confidence from these discussions."
“One day we used the card with the graph of the recovery journey which highlights the common ebb and flow, the ups and downs. This helped us as a team to reflect on and process the reality that we as a team and as individuals are also going through this same journey."
"It's been helpful to give our employees a space where we could acknowledge what's going on. For our employees, it's given them a time and a place to connect with other people that are experiencing the same thing that they are. And to know that it's okay and to process that.”
The impact of these sessions has been profound. Team members have provided positive feedback, noting that the conversations have helped them catch their breath, gain clarity, and build trust and confidence in one another. Christy, who has a background in counseling and group facilitation, noted that the tools provided by Hummingly were simple yet powerful, enabling her to effectively guide the team through these challenging discussions.
GEM’s partnership with Hummingly has helped Christy provide a much-needed support system for the team in Maui, helping them navigate the complexities of disaster recovery with resilience and compassion.
