A case study of the Trans-Cultural Psychosocial Organisation (TPO) in Northern Uganda and the Hero Book Project working with forcibly displaced child soldiers as examples of an alternative healing to the PTSD model.

摘要

This study focuses on the Hero Book Project and the Transcultural Psychosocial Organization (TPO) as alternative healing strategies to the PTSD model among abducted and forcibly displaced child soldiers in Northern Uganda. It is argued that these therapies are African centered since they have taken into consideration the social, economic and political experiences of African child soldiers displaced by war by economically empowering children in the reintegration process. Whilst the approaches of African trauma practitioners may be questioned on handling and providing the needed services, TPO/Hero Book project have managed to break the silence and reinforce the resilience surrounding children coming back home from war and integrating them into their communities. They had understood trauma as a community problem hence rebuilding community social and economic structures open avenues for abducted and displaced child soldiers to cope with their wartime sufferings.