Creating Space Project

This episode is part-two of Bearing Witness: The backstory to Creating Space where we hear the inspiring yarn behind Ruth Nelson and how this podcast came into being. In the first episode we followed Ruth who, as an 18-year-old, inadvertently signed up to volunteer in community work with refugees leading her on the path of studying psychology.   She survived a brain encephalopathy, and in not choosing the path of least resistance, Ruth headed to northern Uganda at the age of 26 to work in community outreach as an NGO. It’s in this episode where we pick up Ruth’s story as she struggles with the futility of her presence, as a young inexperienced community worker, in an active conflict zone. Ruth saw her role, initially at least, as bearing witness to the atrocities of this insidious and complex conflict but over the two years she initiated and facilitated many programs, some of which had surprisingly comedic outcomes.   After Ruth returned to Australia to complete her qualifications as a psychologist and to wor