Development Studies
Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://mro.massey.ac.nz/handle/10179/10564
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Item Healing from the horror of war : a study of a post-conflict psychosocial program for refugees in Uganda : a research report presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of International Development at Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand(Massey University, 2018) Manson, TimUganda, a landlocked African nation of 41 million people, currently hosts 1.1 million refugees from surrounding nations including South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Rwanda. Many of these refugees have suffered significant psychological trauma as a result of their conflict experiences and through the process of fleeing from their homes and communities. Tutapona is a non-profit organisation that provides group based psychosocial trauma rehabilitation support among war affected populations. This research report examines the effectiveness of the ‘Grow’ program at empowering refugees. The study was carried out in Rwamwanja Refugee Settlement in Western Uganda, which is home to 64,000 people from the DRC. Four refugees who had attended Tutapona’s Grow program were interviewed in depth about their experience and subsequent decisions to ascertain the extent to which empowerment had taken place. The research report concludes that Tutapona’s Grow program has achieved a high degree of success at empowering refugees, especially on the individual and relational levels. More broadly, it suggests that psychosocial interventions in post- conflict settings should be more highly prioritized by humanitarian and development actors.Item Rebuilding communities : a case study of empowerment in post-conflict Rwanda : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Philosophy in Development Studies at Massey University(Massey University, 2009) Parsons, AnnaEmpowerment became a popular concept in the 1990s, so popular that some believe the concept has lost its impact. This thesis uses the empowerment levels of; personal, relational and community, to investigate a psychosocial intervention in the post-conflict environment. The post-conflict environment is one that is disempowering for both men and women. Rwanda, one of the most complicated and devastated post-conflict situations seen since World War II, is the location of the World Vision intervention examined in this thesis. World Vision's Personal Development Workshop aims to provide a safe environment where people can process their experiences of the genocide. They use lectures, individual exercises and small group discussions to cover the topics of understanding the grief process, dealing with emotions and the concept of forgiveness. The thesis concludes that both male and female participants of the Personal Development Workshops have been empowered at all three levels. It shows the benefit of using the empowerment approach in the community context and suggests that consideration of psychosocial interventions is crucial in post-conflict settings. The need for such interventions to be continued for many years after the conflict has ended is also identified.
