Narrative community work in Burundi, Africa: Working with orphaned children and teaching narrative practices to their caregivers— Carlin Moxley Haegert, Marcel Rachid and Linda Moxley-Haegert

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In this paper, we describe a project to support children from Burundi, Africa, who were orphaned by the civil war (1993 to 2003), or by poverty and the HIV/AIDS epidemic. We present our experiences of offering training in collective narrative practices to caregivers and volunteers and providing therapy for the children, and we share our plans for the future. Our hope is to inspire others to do similar work in developing countries and to inform them of some of the possible pitfalls. Although we outline many of the heartbreaking realities of life for these children, our hope is that this paper also highlights how narrative practices can be used to help such children find moments of hope in their lives.