In Rwanda, psychosocial services provide an important contribution to building individual and community resilience, social cohesion and trust. The lack or absence of trust has been shown to not only effect victims of the genocide but to have transgenerational effects with young people encountering issues with developing meaningful relationships. Psychological sequalae from the genocide are found to be long-lasting in both offspring of the survivors and perpetrators of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi (Rieder et al. 2013).  Although most of the population are aware of where they could seek support for mental health (61.7 per cent), only 5.3 per cent reported to have utilized existing mental health services. This project seeks to increase uptake of mental health services and to extend the impact and sustainability of Changing the Story (CTS) projects including Mobile Arts for Peace (MAP) and Connective Memories to embed the provision of mental health support through digital platforms with and for young people by:

• Designing and implementing youth-led monitoring, evaluation and learning tools (MEL);
• Scaling up the project in connection to key services and institutions;
• Developing a CPD programme to embed MAP into the School of Medicine;
• Delivering MEL outputs and policy-level webinar to share project outcomes.

Proposed project

Uwihoreye has received requests from existing partners Rwanda Education Board (REB) and Rwanda Biomedical Centre (RBC) to embed the MAP methodology into mental health services. Uwihoreye (alongside six psychosocial workers from Uyisenga Ni Imanzi, nine youth MAP master trainers and six adult MAP master trainers) will deliver trainings to 118 mental health professionals (clinical psychologists and nurses) who work in five rehabilitation services (serving street-connected young people and former drug users), 82 health institutions (health centres and district hospitals), three prisons, and four rehabilitation centres working alongside three key policy influencers (from REB and RBC) to inform mental health in Rwanda. With this project, we will ensure the sustainability of the approach by integrating the training as a CPD programme with the University of Rwanda, School of Medicine and school of nursing specifically the Department of Clinical Psychology, Mental Health, Psychiatry and Nursing.

This project will enable partners to embed the MAP methodology into existing systems for sustainability, to provide youth-led MEL and to secure future funding by establishing a system and structure in order to apply for the Wellcome Trust Discovery Grant with CTS partners Ananda Breed from University of Lincoln and Kirrily Pells from University College London. The project will use indigenous Rwandan approaches to approach mental health alongside the awareness that mental health and wellness is considered as a communal endeavor to heal the wounds from genocide and structural violence. Likewise, it focuses on the use of digital platforms (Zoom, WhatsApp) to link mental health service users with mental health service providers through youth-led and art-based approaches as a response to COVID-19 to ensure the ongoing provision of mental health and to address stigma.

Resource Archive

Search or browse the resource archive for films, reports, toolkits and other resources produced by the Changing the Story and its commissioned projects. Items relating to Rwanda are listed below: