8 We have now learnt several things from our work. Firstly, it is clear that storytelling is power. It has been salutary indeed to see the effects of the stories being witnessed. The value of "story telling" and "witnessing" cannot be emphasised enough in the therapeutic process. As our clients have repopulated their history, so they have become more assertive about their needs and their rights, but story telling also has had important consequences for us as therapists and community activists. Working with survivors has been very challenging to our cherished notions about psychopathology and psychotherapists. We, as therapists, are often guilty of valuing our story, our theory, over that of the client. We have begun realise that therapy is an epistemological encounter: we are engaged in a debate over theories and methods with our clients, and it is not clear whose theory should be valued. Secondly, we have learned that all action must be holistic. When one takes on a community problem, one takes on the community as a whole: the people, their history, their land and relationship to the land, their modes of production and their organisation, and all the political relations that go with that community. One is forced to develop a policy that stretches from individual counselling to the lobbying of governments. When AMANI considers the effects of violence on Mount Darwin, it must consider the destruction of the environment through to the failure of the government to sign and ratify the UN Convention Against Torture. When we listen to the stories of the survivors, this is what we hear, and this defines our treatment of the consequences of epidemic violence. Thirdly, we have begun to understand the value of Truth and its relationship to accountability. When impunity becomes a common place method of governments avoiding the consequences of its actions, then community development, like any other area of civic activity, becomes threatened. Communities need government to be accountable for its actions and to them if they are to obtain the support they need for their development. For us in Zimbabwe, the accommodation to poverty of our rural communities requires us to struggle to turn silence into speech, acceptance into criticism, and inertia into action, and this will a long process in the context of several decades of silencing. Acknowedgements: This work is the joint work of many different people in the AMANI Trust, and is in every sense a collaborative report. The work has been funded by the Swedish Red Cross, the Oak Zimbabwe Foundation, the International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims, the United Nations Voluntary Fund for Victims of Torture, and the DANIDA: without their generous support this work could not have been done. The AMANI Trust is currently funded by DANIDA, the United Nations Voluntary Fund for Victims of Torture, and the Swiss Embassy. REFERENCES: AMANI Trust (1997), Report on Psychological Disorders in Clinics and Hospitals in Mount Darwin District, Mashonaland Central Province, HARARE: AMANI. AMANI Trust(1995), The Chiweshe Nurse-Counsellor Programme: Resource Manual (revised), HARARE:AMANI. AMANI Trust(1995) Assessment of the Consequences of Torture and Organised Violence: A manual for field workers, HARARE: AMANI. IMMERMAN, R., & REELER, A.P. (1995), Psychological disorders experienced by older Mozambican refugees, Paper presented to VIIth International Symposium on "Torture as a Challenge to the Medical Profession", Cape Town, 14-17 November 1995. MUPINDA, M. (1995), Loss and Grief among the Shona: The Meaning of Disappearances, Paper presented to VIIth International Symposium on "Torture as a Challenge to the Medical Profession", Cape Town, 14-17 November 1995. REELER,A.P.(1994), Is Torture a Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder?, TORTURE, 4, 59-65. REELER,A.P. (1995), Trauma in Mozambican refugees: Findings from a training programme for refugee workers, TORTURE, 5, 18-21. REELER, A.P. (1995), Surviving Torture: A Zimbabwean Experience, Paper presented to "Old Ways - New Theories: Traditional and Contemporary Family Therapy Connect in Africa", an International Conference, Harare, 31 July - 3 August 1995. REELER, A.P. (1995), Community-based care of survivors: The AMANI experience in Mount Darwin, Zimbabwe, Paper presented to VIIth International Symposium on "Torture as a Challenge to the Medical Profession", Cape Town, 14-17 November 1995.