Healing Together is a global nonprofit that equips communities with peer-based, mental health resources, to break cycles of trauma and violence.

As we near the two-year mark of this global pandemic, the need for our work has never been clearer. From the mental health fallout from months of isolation to the trauma of being unable to mourn the loss of loved ones in community... whatever our personal situation, none of us have escaped this time unscathed. 

Since the pandemic, Healing Together has equipped over 4,000 educators, health workers, and frontline community workers most impacted by the pandemic and systemic inequity with tools to heal their own trauma, while supporting their communities to heal, too.

Below is the story of Suresh, a teacher and abuse survivor who attended our training in 2015, started healing his past trauma, and has gone on to create ripples of healing for over 12,500 people.

Will you join us in training everyday people to become peer mental health advocates in their communities, so we can catalyze a healing movement that impacts thousands more people around the world?

Check out our free T-shirt perks for donations over $125 (additional T-shirt designs for sale online here...) 

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This is Suresh. 

For me, Suresh epitomizes both the personal healing and the ongoing community healing that Healing Together supports around the world.   

Growing Up  - Sexual Abuse, Bullying, and Poverty  

Growing up in Nepal, Suresh endured things no child should ever experience : ongoing sexual abuse by trusted elders—a relative, his teacher, and a family friend, bullying because of his skin color, and poverty , disease , and malnutrition . 

To survive, Suresh became numb . He didn’t let himself cry. His experiences taught him the dangers of being kind, so he closed off his heart, hurt those he loved most, and hurt himself too.

He couldn’t find peace because he hadn’t made peace with his past .    

Healing Together Training - Healing Old Traumas 

In 2015, Healing Together brought a community trauma healing training to Nepal that Suresh participated in. In Suresh’s own words, “the training completely shook my being, and my perspective towards life was changed . For the first time in life, I began to find the keys to happiness for myself. I am now more compassionate; I can feel the pain of others, I know what I am feeling and why, and what I need to do to make myself happy, so I can help others too.”  

Suresh wanted to bring the gift of healing to communities all over Nepal, “to help children, leaders, adults, parents, and each and every person to be a better person —to find healing and to stop abuse, as I experienced as a young boy.”

Ripples of Healing - Impacting Over 12,000 Survivors To Date

Initially, Suresh served as a youth mentor to 60 students, teaching them how to heal their sad emotions, share their stories, and act with love and empathy towards themselves and others.    

We then hired Suresh as our Country Director in Nepal. Since 2019, he’s trained nearly 1,000 community members in trauma-informed mental health advocacy, impacting over 12,500 survivors of sex trafficking, gender violence, and child abuse, so they can heal themselves and others, and break generational cycles of trauma and violence .  

He also launched a mental health podcast to share stories of healing and break stigma, in a country that has the 7 th highest suicide rate in the world and where suicide is the leading cause of death among women and girls aged 15-49.

This year, he launched the first-ever online mental health certification training in Nepal, while simultaneously completing his post graduate degree in Psychology.  

Together, We Can Create Ripples of Healing Across the Globe  

Suresh is living proof that it only takes one person to create a ripple of healing f or thousands of survivors .  

Y our support of Healing Together enables us to create these ripples of healing all over the world. Since our inception, we’ve:  

• Trained 6,600+ community members in peer-led, trauma-informed, mental health support, including teachers, caregivers, and those on the front lines of the COVID-19 response
• Supported 95 ,000 survivors of trauma from 23 countries around the world, including the US, Nepal, and Uganda  
• Helped communities heal addiction and depression , coached aggressors of violence to end cycles of abuse , and trained parents and students in emotional first aid , peer counseling , and how to cope with stress and trauma in healthy ways

While the future of the pandemic is unclear, the mental health impact is here to stay. And communities, from Oakland, California to Kathmandu, Nepal, continue to seek our help. 

Will you join me in training leaders like Suresh to become mental health advocates and break cycles of trauma and violence for thousands of survivors around the world — by making a tax-deductible gift to Healing Together this year?