Healing Support via an Inclusive, Digital Platform
Healing Support via an Inclusive, Digital Platform
April 17, 2023 | Nawar Maarri
Providing psychological support in a person’s mother tongue has been at the heart of Peace Therapist’s mission since launching in 2020. Founded by Syrian refugee Jin Dawoud and based on her own experiences after fleeing the war, Peace Therapist is an award-winning platform that provides a safe and compassionate space to heal with a diverse team of psychologists speaking English, Turkish, and Arabic.
Jin founded Peace Therapist after seeing how difficult it was to access therapy services in her native language, something that can be profoundly helpful to the healing process. Through their app, online platform, and physical practice locations, Peace Therapist offers therapy services to businesses and individual clients, as well as free therapy for refugees and disadvantaged groups traumatized by war.
“Our goal is to empower people to overcome the traumatic effects of war and disaster, and find peace within themselves once again,” says Jin.
As a female small business owner, Jin knows the value of community. She found both mentorship and business training support through Building Markets, helping her business to run efficiently and be more visible to clients who are seeking help. Having a mentor gave her both the encouragement and skills that helped grow her small business, improve her accounting practices, and much more. Many of the training courses Jin attended were focused on digitalization or digital marketing. Jin invests in digital solutions because she knows that digital technology is essential to scaling the Peace Therapist platform – and spreading peace around the world.
The February 6 earthquakes brought a new wave of need, especially in Şanlıurfa where her team witnessed the devastating effects firsthand. Peace Therapist immediately began offering free support sessions and opened an online form where anyone could request therapy in local languages. Their current goal is to provide 1,000 hours of therapy to the community by the end of May.
Building on its strong business model, Peace Therapist has become a powerful resource to earthquake providers. It is the only platform that provides access to psychologists who are native speakers of the three languages spoken in the earthquake region and offers access to a pool of hundreds of psychologists with trauma expertise. Peace Therapist also provides business-to-business services, providing psychological support and mental health services to organizations like the International Labor Organization or NGOs responding to the disaster.
In the coming months, Jin hopes the Peace Therapist platform will continue to expand its reach to more people who will benefit from its services.
“For us, it’s not just about offering therapy sessions – it’s about providing hope and a sense of humanity to those who have lost so much,” says Jin. “We believe that everyone deserves access to mental health care, regardless of their background or circumstances.”
