On March 10th 2010 some 54 brave villagers gathered to claim back their pre-school building from the jaws of violence. This community utility building once a happy place filled with children’s laughter had become a dreaded place shunned by the community and seen as a god forsaken structure, now known as the ‘slaughter’. This gathering included the headman and 4...

Gomoza, in Lupane, is an area that has become synonymous with the violence of the 2008 presidential rerun. Since the initial mediation intervention, GTH has been working with and in the community to normalise the situation. One of the basic tenets of peacebuilding is the necessity of tracing the root causes of the particular conflict one is dealing with. Sometimes...

Adonis, My experience as an intern at Grace to Heal entailed several visits to rural communities and my first trip was to Tsholotsho where there are many people who were affected by the Gukurahundi atrocities of the 1980s in Zimbabwe. It was difficult at first to accept that such things actually took place and as victims gave their testimonies and...

From a culture of violence to nonviolence Born from a violent struggle for independence from a violent and oppressive colonial system, the nation of Zimbabwe has inevitably inherited violence as a conflict resolution tool of choice. The national psyche is steeped in violence, incidents of violence dot the history of Zimbabwe. Some of the major incidents include: the 1980s massacres...

This is the mainstay of our mandate, our work with communities in Matabeleland over the years has given us certain competencies in this area which we have been able to adapt and apply to other areas affected by a different type of political violence. Our approach to trauma healing is psychosocial rather than clinical. Historic political violence victims: We work...

It has been our experience that women make excellent Peacebuilders and have very constructive ideas, but when they are put together with men, they tend to withdraw and allow men to dominate. This of course is a cultural trait. We normally have ladies only workshops to help empower the women to be confident enough to hold their own even when...

In this programme we try to encourage church leaders to be actively involved socially within their communities. In Zimbabwe the tendency among Christians, particularly in the rural areas is to treat social responsibility as something ungodly. Our work, all our work in the community is done through the churches found in that community. When we get into the community for...

These are done for all the categories of people we work with in order to equip them with Peacebuilding skills. Two things we must do if we are to succeed in deconstructing the culture of violence and cultivate a culture of peace, teach people how to handle conflict constructively and to do so in a nonviolent manner. So the young...

Our desire is to promote dialogue at the highest intellectual levels in the country, from a Christian perspective. In conjunction with our partners, we plan to offer under and post graduate studies, offer symposia and debates on Peacebuilding related topics. Research within the same field will also be carried out so that we are better informed about the state of...

Our involvement in this programme was prompted by the many violent student demonstrations at the local university and other tertiary institutions. We worked with the Students Representative Councils in nonviolent activism. We were then asked to train the National Student leadership but unfortunately due to lack of resources we were unable to do that, in fact we were not even...