The purpose of the project PRISM is to (a) develop and (b) empirically validate a measure to assess beneficial impacts of the Action-Based Psychosocial Reconciliation Approach(ABPRA), an approach to foster interpersonal reconciliation. ABPRA was developed by Dr. Minami in the context to support the process of psychosocial reconciliation between survivors and perpetrators of the 1994 Rwandan genocide living in the same communities. The proposed project is an integral part of a larger-scale experimental study to evaluate the effectiveness of ABPRA. Qualitative interview data from two-years of field studies, implementing ABPRA in two rural Rwandan villages, revealed 5 beneficial ‘properties’ of ABPRA in fostering interpersonal/psychosocial reconciliation process: (a) healing, (b) attitude change, (c) reconciliation, (d) relationship building, and (e) psychosocial development. Using a mixed methods approach, we aim at developing the corresponding sub-scales with items ‘capturing’ ABPRA’s 5 properties. Qualitative pilot data serves as an initial narrative pool for item development for the scales. Psychometric properties of the item pool and scales will be examined employing factor analyses, sampled by an online survey. Confirmatory factor analysis will test the presence of 5 sub-scales, and post-hoc exploratory factor analysis will select items for the final measure.

Project partners:

Prison Fellowship Rwanda & Rwanda National Unity and Reconciliation Commission

Project funded by: