APCJ_1528_Win2010_00i_122_4 12/30/10 3:22 PM Page 106 BRIEFING Integrity of Process: How Tree of Life Is Taking Root in Zimbabwe Sara Templer Tree of Life, a low-cost survivor-to-survivor therapeutic workshop process, was introduced into Zimbabwe in 2004. It is currently being delivered among survivors of organized violence and torture. The process involves three days of workshop discussions and activities through which participants are enabled to piece together their traumatic experiences and integrate them with the rest of their life story, using the image of a tree to facilitate this work. Evaluations of the workshop outcomes to date and follow-up meetings with participants indicate positive changes in the lives and outlook of the majority of participants. BALANCING THE NEEDS OF VULNERABLE INDIVIDUALS AND GROUPS with the administrative criteria and processes typically imposed by funding agencies is not a task for the fainthearted. Community development and aid programme workers devote enormous amounts of precious time and energy detailing their project proposals in standardised language, justifying their costs on rigorous balance sheets, and quantifying outputs and benchmarks reached in terms that often seem far removed from the spirit of the project as it unfolds in ‘real life’. Controls are necessary to maintain accountability as funds and goods flow from benefactors to beneficiaries, but many members of organizations that walk the line between interacting with donors and making life liveable for vulnerable constituencies express frustration with inflexible processes, formulaic language, and prescribed modes for measuring ‘progress’ or ‘outcomes achieved’. In similar ways, restrictive policy environments which constrain the activity and voices of various groups can hinder development workers and other agencies in their efforts to alleviate suffering of different kinds. In these contexts, a key challenge for nongovernmental organizations is to maintain ‘integrity of process’ with regard to the job they believe is theirs to do on the ground, regardless of the constraints of the policy or funding environment. Sara Templer is a doctoral candidate at the Institute of Irish Studies, Queen’s University, Belfast. Her research explores how governments in transitional societies respond to the needs and circumstances of victims and survivors of political conflict. For information on Tree of Life, contact Robin Wild, coordinator, at wildcahi@zol.co.zw. Africa Peace and Conflict Journal, 3:2 (2010), 106–112. © 2010 University for Peace Africa Programme. All rights reserved. ISSN 1659–3944.