The YMCA’s counselor visited him and made a thorough assessment of his psychosocial status. Wael suffered from PTSD syndromes, the images of soldiers arresting him, the time he spent in the military vehicle, and the inhuman treatment he received during his imprisonment haunted his mind. Soon he started receiving counseling sessions on a regular basis using the EMDR technique, which is relatively speaking one of the latest and most effective techniques used in counseling.His counselor describes that “they just didn’t realize… they didn’t see that he was fourteen years old and needed to be treated better.”

Working with Wael came in parallel with working with his family and his teachers aiming at facilitating the process of reintegrating him into the society. Wael was referred to remedial education classes for two months to help him catch up with his studiesand he was able to follow-up very well with his peers at school.

After five months of close follow up by the YMCA team, Wael was able to recover; he could sleep calmly through the night, no more horrible scenes were dominating his mind, his relationship with his family improved and he did very well at school. His biggest motivation is to succeed in the Tawjihi (General Secondary Certificate) exam and attend university to study medicine and become a doctor. The counselor continues to check on Wael and makes sure that he is doing well both at school and at home. He explains “Wael looks ambitiously towards his future. He improved his relations a lot and developed his self-esteem”.