Mvura Nkuvure: Intergenerational healing and community reconciliation for sustainable peace

The Mvura Nkuvure project has been designed and implemented by Community Based Sociotherapy Rwanda (CBS) and its partners the Anglican Church, Byumba Diocese (EAR Byumba) and Prison Fellowship Rwanda (PFR) to facilitate processes of intergenerational healing and community reconciliation and raise awareness about the need for psychosocial interventions in a society like Rwanda. The interlinked sub-foci of this particular project are: 1) facilitating the psychosocial reintegration of (ex-)prisoners, 2) addressing intergenerational legacies of the genocide that can be perceived as important factors hampering reconciliation in the long term, and 3) good leadership and reinforcing ownership among (local) leaders, teachers, and other professionals (like staff of the Rwanda Correctional Services) who can be expected to make a difference in society and communities in a reconciliation process stretching across different generations. The overall objective of the project is to: “Contribute to strengthening a peaceful Rwandan society through the facilitation of bottom-up, inclusive, reconciliation processes and effective healing of individual and collective wounds generated by the genocide and its aftermath.” Objective 1: Enhanced psychosocial reintegration of (released) prisoners in their families and communities. Objective 2. Intergenerational legacies of the genocide that have negative outcomes on young people's propensity to reconciliation are effectively dealt with in the community. Objective 3. Increased space and capacity among staff of the Rwanda Correctional Service, national and local (government) leaders, teachers and communities to better understand, own and mainstream reconciliation and issues related to (ex-)prisoner reintegration and intergenerational legacies of the genocide are placed as topics of general interest on the political agenda at national level. Healing, reconciliation, addressing intergenerational legacies and prisoners’ reintegration are all a community affair. However, within communities one can distinguish different categories of people who suffered in particular ways and need psychosocial support in order to overcome their sense of helplessness and passivity and to strengthen their civic participation in community affairs. Although sociotherapy has been proven to benefit all categories of community members, and is open to all members of the society, specific categories of people as referred to below are specifically targeted in this project which focuses on 1) prisoner reintegration, 2) addressing intergenerational legacies and 3) increasing ownership over the reconciliation process among different local leaders, teachers and communities. These target groups include among others: (former) prisoners and their family members, genocide survivors, youth, local leaders and teachers and the staff of the Rwanda Correctional Service.