Blog

After the country was shattered by genocide against the Tutsi, they were many orphans, widows, children born of rape, fear, ongoing struggle, physical and emotional wounds, fractured communities, and families, and more than 120,000 people in perpetrators of the genocide, international organizations, and practitioners from around the world flocked to Rwanda, armed with models and practices that had proven successful in other contexts.

But Rwandans had different ways of doing things rooted in their own culture and traditions. They had tried Western models and found them not to fit not only in healing but also in social justice. Local ways of responding to these issues were very much needed. A team from Dulwich Centre together with Jill Freedman and Gene Combs started coming to Rwanda in 2007, when they came, they came to learn. The Ibuka counsellors spoke intensely and expressively of grief and pain and this would intersperse that talk with laughter, singing, jokes and dancing. These were really different ways than the conventional way of speaking about hardships and trauma. In a conversation with Jill Freedman and Gene Combs, Joseph speaks about growing up in this community of practitioners and himself. He speaks about witnessing this way of practice and how he’s been able to get inspiration as a young practitioner to support the people he meets in practice. He speaks what it means for his generation of practitioners.