APCJ_1528_Win2010_00i_122_4 12/30/10 3:22 PM Page 112 112 AFRICA PEACE AND CONFLICT JOURNAL learning with their communities if and however they wish. This was made clear by the Small Tree of Life representatives who came to hear what the community-based branch had to say and to discuss how it wanted to proceed. The Small Tree of Life committed to supporting the community-branch members as they planned and tried to take new steps, indicating that it would be available to discuss challenges along the way. The members of the Small Tree of Life, however, also told those gathered that they must ‘release us’, meaning that the Big Tree of Life must value its own experience and feel confident taking steps alone into the community that it knows so well. In short, the branch is justified in pursuing and facilitating the much-needed healing among its own neighbours. The relationship with the Small Tree of Life will remain, but the work and experience of healing and empowerment, the future, belongs to the community itself. Third, the worth of the assistance that Tree of Life offers is attested by the ongoing involvement of participants. Although its approach does not negate the need for external evaluation, the participants’ commitment to perpetuating the process is itself a built-in evaluation mechanism. The people who arrive at Tree of Life circles come because they believe in and benefit from the process: in the commonly understood sense of ‘humanitarian aid’, there is nothing tangible to be gained. Indeed, in terms of the dangers and fears that pervade Zimbabwean society, there is much to be lost. Yet individuals are motivating their neighbours to participate. It is purely on the strength of the evidence of positive personal growth that the Tree of Life is growing. The only incentive that its branches have to encourage others to participate is to continue living within their communities with their own restored sense of self and purpose. CONCLUSION This description of the Tree of Life process is only a snapshot of the organization’s work. The circumstances under which it carries out its work change constantly, affected by limited funding for residential workshops, the general poverty of resources across the country, the constant threat of violence, and currently, the increasing tensions surrounding public consultation on a new constitution. Nonetheless, I was struck by a statement made by the man who invited us into his home for a circle outside Harare. When I was handed the talking piece and asked to introduce myself to the circle, I said that I was a visitor. He immediately responded, ‘Welcome! This is Zimbabwe. And we are Zimbabweans. And this is what we do’. This statement demonstrates that despite the constraints and challenges that the organization faces, the Tree of Life has taken root. It also shows that the organization is resisting the temptation to ‘brand’ its outputs: the people who go through the process are members of the family of the Tree of Life, but they are also as free to define themselves as they had been before they participated in the workshop. The statement also reveals the extent to which participants feel a sense of belonging, not only among fellow Tree of Life members and participants but also within a wider and more diffuse community. Crucially, it emphasizes the extent to which participants of the Tree of Life process come to feel they are in control of their actions and lives, despite the threatening and disempowering circumstances in which many Zimbabweans currently find themselves.