Since 2017, the Imago Relational Method has won the hearts of Africans. They are more than a hundred today, multi-confessional Christians and Muslims, from Benin, Togo and Burkina Faso to have participated in Imago courses. These courses have been redesigned to accommodate couples and single people (pastoral agents, religious, priests, pastors, lay people).
The goal: to pacify and strengthen family relationships, in a couple, in a charity work, in the governance of an associative or corporate structure.
It all started in August 2017 with a vision between Antoine D’Audiffret and Vincent Heulin that they shared with Fondacio and Fondacio Benin. This vision worked on for a long time that year, gave birth to a mission of exploration and presentation of Imago in Benin piloted by Vincent Heulin, responsible at the time of the Couples and Families mission at Fondacio France and with a volunteer friend , Chantal Lepeigneux. Both are certified Imago therapists and practitioners. This exploration mission took place in several towns in Benin between Cotonou and Parakou. It was coordinated by Fondacio in Benin, Fondacio, and Love-Power, then gradually linked up with the Imago France association. Together, they studied the context, the needs, the material and financial constraints to achieve a credible and stable project spanning 6 years with the main purpose: the promotion of women in French-speaking Africa from Benin to Imago tools help.
The Imago Relational Method was created by Doctor Harville Hendrix and his wife Helen LaKelly Hunt in the 1980s in the United States. She suggests that couples welcome conflicts and frustrations as opportunities for growth. It also equips many professionals in the helping relationship to help with new awareness, inner disarmament and pacification through individual interviews or within groups. Very structured dialogues and practical exercises make it possible to rebuild a secure relational space, where everyone listens, understands and respects the personal universe of the other. The heart of the work is to dissolve the tensions (and not to resolve them) in order to get out of a power struggle to “team up” and re-humanize the relationship(s). For more information: www.imago-france.fr
It was in August 2018 that the associations and movements Fondacio, Love-Power and Imago France officially organized four couples and solo courses. Since then, these courses have continued and are run on a voluntary basis by certified French and Swiss professionals. They gathered at the Cardinal Gantin Pastoral Center in Bamè (about 200 km north of Cotonou, the economic capital of the country), about sixty participants from Benin, Togo and Burkina Faso.
All of the internships also aim to detect people who potentially have the skills to become future professionals in marital support themselves. But also individual and team assistance within companies and associations. The hope being to be able to send to Benin in the near future a supervisor and then an instructor who would train these future professionals. The latter will practice and give their skills in the service of different religions, Christian, Muslim, endogenous and civil society, in each of their French-speaking African countries.
This mission, supported by tools proven for fifty years and effective, offers a deeply secure framework as well as a real renewal in conjugal intimacy, and more broadly relational, cradle of socialization for the younger generations, particularly the place of woman. She opens her eyes on how to LISTEN to the other in a more conscious way in order to dialogue in love and in truth in a non-violent energy. It calls for us to open up to the world in a different way, to show solidarity with our brothers and sisters, to become artisans of peace.
The first fruits are of course individual and couple transformations, but the most important being the training and certification of Beninese in order to root and perpetuate the project for French-speaking Africa. This becomes possible thanks to the commitment of Cyro and Cyra SEKE, leading couple of the NGO Love-Power, hosts of the TV program “United Forever”, and having been received by Pope Francis, who followed the training in conjunction with Imago France. More recently, Jérôme TOZE, one of the managers of Fondacio West Africa, got involved in training with a view to being certified as a Facilitator. Gradually they will receive interviews with people from Benin and will themselves be able to co-host various workshops and later internships.
For the summer of 2021 are planned respectively:
– A solo course from August 25-28
– A couple course from August 26-29
– So-called deepening days for former participants on August 21-22
Testimonials from participating couples and solos:
Several videos are available at https://cutt.ly/lkjm8Oc
- We were overwhelmed with joy and vigor (Omer & Immaculée TOSSOU)
We were encouraged by one of our children to experience the four days of the Imago course, which was unprecedented for our couple. We have not at all regretted having left everything to leave together. We were over the moon, overwhelmed with joy and vigor. Thank you for teaching us how to dialogue and listen to each other in depth. You just saved our couple.
- We came out of this Imago internship even more in love (Fabrice & Eméra LANHA).
We came out of this internship even more in love, more equipped to better manage our life as a couple. Fabrice: “This internship gives me a new perspective on the conflicts encountered. Eméra: “I learned to abandon the balance of power and the accusation in favor of a partnership to better manage my childhood wounds” What we learned again is that the other is not not responsible for our annoyances, our disappointments and our bitterness. He is the simple revealer. The dimension of the conflict is upset and becomes incredibly rich: It becomes an opportunity to grow…. Fabrice: Sigh…. It’s crazy to understand it that way. I leave with the word dialogue, dialogue and dialogue.
- Rediscovering the joy of loving yourself thanks to Imago (Elisabeth & Jérôme)
What upset Elisabeth and me a lot was the “positive flood dialogue. » I was able to realize and feel my qualities by listening to Elisabeth, and when she shouted to everyone in the room « Jérôme, I love you » it made me even more madly in love. Elisabeth: “And for me, it’s a unique and very powerful experience when Jérôme was snuggled up like a baby in my arms during the embrace, I was able to listen to his story in depth, his weaknesses, his needs. It transformed me and reborn me with love.”
