Post-conflict Healing and Reconstruction for Peace: The power of social mobilization

The purpose of this book chapter in Fear of Persecution: Global Human Rights, International Law and Human Well-Being is to expand the discourse on psychosocial assistance to refugees and displaced people beyond the trauma frame toward more holistic approaches that enable movement toward peace, conceived systemically to include nonviolence and social justice at multiple levels. Drawing on work from the field, much of it conducted by U.N. agencies and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), it argues that narrow, clinical approaches are less well suited than are community-based approaches to the tasks of sustainable healing on a wide scale and of building peace. Examining community-based work in Angola, it illustrates the potential power of healing based on social mobilization that builds local capacities, uses local resources, and activates communities for economic development and social action on behalf of peace and the well-being of future generations.