The Tree of Life Trust Zimbabwe is a non-governmental organisation with a broad objective to create a healed and empowered society that puts its energy into processes of peace, recovery and reconciliation. Since 2008 we have been providing community-based mental health, social cohesion, and psychosocial support (MHPSS) approaches that help people living with difficulties to reconnect with self, nature, family and community. Aside from individual well-being, our processes have been evidenced to foster social cohesion at a large scale. Since inception, Tree of Life has reached over 220,000 people across Zimbabwe with MHPSS support. Women are at the center of our work and to date over 65% of our beneficiaries have been women, with approximately 50% of our 1400+ trained community-based psychoeducation trainers being women. Our key interventions are evidence-based and have been proven by international researchers to improve mental health outcomes and increase community cohesion and resilience. In support of Zimbabwe's Vision 2030, ToL's interventions feed directly into the Zimbabwe National Development Strategy (NDS1) National Priorities of "Health and Wellbeing", "Governance", "Social Protection" and "Youth, Gender, Sports & Culture".
Tree of Life (ToL) works within 8 of the 10 provinces across Zimbabwe, largely through a network of seasoned Community-based Facilitators, most of whom are survivors from various forms of life's difficulties. Having trained well over 1000 community-volunteers in various MHPSS interventions, Tree of Life is one of Zimbabwe's largest local NGO's providing community-based MHPSS services in the country.
Tree of Life also collaborates with other Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) by providing capacity building in Trauma-Informed Care processes, as well as through the provision of Psychoeducation services and to date we have partnered with over 40 other CSOs
Our Vision
A healed and resilient cohesive society
Our Mission
To inspire peaceful communities through processes of wellbeing and social cohesion
Goal
Tree of Life will be recognised as an organisation that inspires relevant and scalable collective trauma healing processes that are evidence based
Theory of change
If trauma is dealt with through group-based community-rooted processes, including both victims and key people, then social-cohesion will increase, enabling reconciliation, peace and development to happen.
What we do
Trauma Healing and Empowerment (TH&E) workshops for people struggling with stress and difficulties;
Psychosocial Awareness and Coping Skills (PACS) workshops to build community cohesion;
Psychosocial First Aid (PFA) workshops to help communities cope with sudden shocks;
Gender mainstreaming and Protection mainstreaming capacity building;
Self-Care workshops for organisations working in challenging conditions;
Singing to the Lions workshops to help Children prevent and address trauma;
Capacity Building communities in Protection mainstreaming
Intensive Youth programming supporting their mental well-being and livelihoods development
Suicide Management, Bereavement and Loss Support to communities;
Referrals as part of the Mental Health and Psychosocial Support Services (MHPSS) continuum of care;
Trauma Informed Care (TIC) and Trauma Awareness workshops for other NGOs;
Training and Capacity Building for volunteer community-based facilitators;
Collaborations with other like-minded organisations and networks;
Supporting National Peace, Reconciliation and Transitional Justice processes.
Tree of Life is a registered Trust - Reg No: MA0000900/2010
