Globally, research shows that refugee populations face significant mental health challenges due to the compounded effects of trauma, displacement, and integration into host societies. According to the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR, 2024), over 117.3 million people were forcibly displaced at the end of 2023, with refugees being particularly vulnerable to mental health difficulties. In Western countries like Germany, which hosts the largest number of refugees in Europe (around 2 million), 7 per cent of all refugees in the world (UN DESA, 2021) with adolescents suffering enormous toll of mental health issues. On the other hand, Rwanda with it’s small size and economy was reported to host over 127,000 refegees (UNHCR, 2021), a number that has increased as a result of the increased regional conflicts.

With this, never before does experience sharing among professionals is a necessity to tackle this global challenge. This talk is designed to share with professionals working with refugees in Germany with culturally sensitive narrative therapy ways to address mental health challenges in Rwanda. It will also share on knowlegde and experience from Rwandan professionals working with refugees from the different parts in the great lakes region and the creative ways they are using narrative approach to respond to the hardships through externalizing problems, re-authoring conversations, and collective storytelling, to build trust and social connection among refugee adolescents. Participants will also discuss on the interactive exercises, similation exercises employed in developing user-friendly materials for education, communication and information sharing when working with young people experiencing trauma and grief.

There will also be an opportunity to exchange and shared learning on ways the interventions developed in Global South can contribute in responding to mental health issues in contexts such as Germany with a high number of refugees coming from the different cultural backgrounds to foster North-South collaborations in responding to Global mental Health challenges.

This event will be moderated by Joseph Kalisa (Clinical Psychologist).

Please note: This event will take place on site at Centra.