Between March 2020 and June 2022, Tree of Life was an implementing partner in the World Food Programme (WFP) Zambuko Livelihoods project being conducted in ten wards across Masvingo and Mwenezi. Our role was to provide a complementary social cohesion component alongside important livelihoods development activities conducted by SNV, CIMMYT, AQUA and Mwenezi Development Training Center.

Despite the project running in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, Tree of Life were able to physically conduct 137 Psychosocial Awareness and Coping Skills (PACS) workshops for 6581 people. We also thoroughly trained 128 Community Cohesion Facilitators (CCFs) across the 10 Wards. Encouraged by the positive feedback from participating communities, ToL commissioned a seasoned external evaluation company, Q-Partnership, to conduct an end of project evaluation in June 2022.

Below are a few excerpts from the Executive Summary:

Tree of Life (ToL) demonstrated strong capacity in supporting development players to increase the core resilience capacities of the communities they serve.  This was ably demonstrated through the facilitation of PACS workshops and conflict management for beneficiary communities selected to benefit from various livelihoods resilience support interventions. As an add on intervention, PACS training provided much needed mental health and stress management therapy, both fundamental building blocks for a resilient mindset….

…If the momentum generated by ToL is maintained, and its gains are sustained, communities could begin to become truly resilient in the face of shocks and stressors, with internal capacity for: -

• Coping with stress and trauma at an individual, family and community level.
• Community collaboration.
• Adhering to their constitutions/operating guidelines.
• Being aware of and managing their own barriers and enablers.
• Constructing shared community visions.
• Designing relevant community action plans, and

Actively reducing conflict as beneficiaries seek out mutual interests.