Peacebuilding, Migration, Disaster Relief, Youth Engagement and Recovery from Violence
Rising from Resilient Roots is a one-day resilience-strengthening workshop designed to help participants in fragile and conflicted contexts find inner peace by understanding and honoring their origins, experiences and their identity. The workshop encourages self-reflection and teaches coping skills that foster hope and well-being not only in the participants, but by extension to their families, neighborhoods and communities. Rising from Resilient Roots explores how inner healing can break cycles of destructive violence to transform immediate surroundings, communities and societies for improved well-being, leadership and peace.
A brief video demonstrating how we rolled Rising From Resilient Roots out to 4 country programs in West Africa
Highlights from "Rising from Resilient Roots"
An earlier version of Rising from Resilient Roots was first developed in 2018 as part of CRS’s Action for the Protection and Integration of Migrants in Africa project in order to help West African migrant youth cope with the failure of their intended migration to Europe. The activities in that version –Resilient Roots -- were adapted from CRS workshop publications Singing to the Lions with input from Tree of Life and Journey of Life
As we implemented the earlier version of this manual across Africa, we recognized the importance of roots as a source of inner strength—family, faith, community and birthplace. Given the enthusiastic feedback we received along with the idea that this workshop could be applied in other settings, we adapted this new version to more specifically fit contexts of peacebuilding, youth engagement, recovery from violence, and humanitarian assistance. The training provided through Rising from Resilient Roots supports CRS’s behavioral competencies of Innovation and Continuous Improvement and Builds Constructive Relationships.
Rising from Resilient Roots is applicable to youth leaders, refugees, migrants, care-leavers, survivors of gender-based violence, and people affected by natural or man-made disasters. It has also been used with faith-based and government representatives and to enhance staff well-being. Depending on the focus, the group composition may be age or gender specific. Facilitators may make changes to the wording to make it more suitable for their particular groups. If it is not possible to conduct in one-day, the activities can be divided into four sessions of approximately 90 minutes each. The manual is available for downloading in French, English, Spanish, Arabic and Portuguese and comes with Monitoring and Evaluation indicators that can be used to build statistical evidence of the workshop’s effectiveness over time.