Module 6 helps practitioners to promote community healing through reconciliation and
transitional justice. The module explores how these key concepts, which are often
misunderstood and feared, can help rebuild and heal communities by bringing both
perpetrators and victims to sustained dialogue. It also provides an overview of these
concepts at regional and international levels and on how these approaches can be
employed by individuals and communities in post-conflict societies in order to ensure
healing and sustainable peace.
Module 7 introduces the concepts of dealing with trauma and providing psychological
support so as to promote community healing. These are very technical concepts that are
usually ignored yet, if not considered, they are the harbingers of the next cycle of violence.
The module employs simplified language for use by front-line workers who encounter
traumatised survivors during the course of their work. It also provides internationally
accepted toolkits that give guidelines that will be helpful to practitioners.
Lastly, Module 8 brings trainers back to the basics of monitoring and evaluation, two
activities that are critical to their community interventions. It is always important to
measure what has been achieved against what was initially planned in order to assess
whether programmes are realising their intended goals that they were funded for, while at
the same time learning from what has been done. Such reflection should be systemic from
the outset of the planning process to the time of the final assessment. The module
therefore helps trainers to make monitoring and evaluation processes part of every
intervention as we await new case studies to share with the world.
Most importantly, all the training modules in this manual reflect on the constitutional
obligations of the National Peace and Reconciliation Commission (NPRC). It is our greatest
wish that this manual, along with others that have been produced before, will contribute
to the healing of communities and thus to a peaceful and prospering Zimbabwe.
Webster Zambara
Institute for Justice and Reconciliation (IJR), Cape Town
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Community Healing: A training manual for Zimbabwe
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