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This notebook provides insights and concrete experience into the efforts to integrate and maximize knowledge from traditional and western healing methods to reintegrate child soldiers into communities devastated by war. Rebuilding Hope saw the need for an integrated healing process that would allow families and communities to accept child soldiers back into their lives -- even those who had killed their relatives and burned down villages.

Acknowledging that traditional healers are often the first people community members approach when they need help (healing), Rebuilding Hope psychologists approached the healers as well as other community leaders, such as teachers and tribal leaders, to be project partners.

The creation of an integrated support system combining western psychology and the traditional healing processes enabled children to be reintegrated into their families and communities as purified people, while the psychologists developed sustainable mental and emotional support systems for them. Such reintegration issues are not unique to Mozambique. Other communities dealing with these complex issues of reintegration, whether of child solders or other populations, can find this tactic helpful in generating ideas toward accessing traditional forms of support and healing.

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