Trainings in Africa

Founder Gloria Simoneaux has recently been awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to lecture and research at the University of Nairobi, Kenya for a year. She will move to Kenya in September 2008.

Harambee Arts training programs empower caregivers to feel more secure as they support and nurture the well-being of Africa's next generation of leaders.

The trainings have been carefully honed so that they are accessible to a wide range of professional and semi-professionals and to the vast range of economic, cultural and age differences encountered.

Training Objectives

1. Provide training to caregivers in sub-Saharan Africa to facilitate expressive, nonverbal activities for vulnerable, traumatized children, including art, music, dance and movement to provide a non-threatening way for children to tell their stories, ground and organize their thoughts and feelings while communicating their experiences to others.

2. Teach caregivers to observe the children's nonverbal experience in order to help the children integrate the gains into counseling.

3. Train individuals who are capable of training other caregivers;

4. Create opportunities for vulnerable, traumatized children to reach out to their peers who may be struggling with hardships and loss and encourage them to share their hopes for the future as well as past traumas;

5. Empower children to transform their self-concept as an "HIV positive orphan" to a "productive member of the community."

Response by Other Organizations

The responses to trainings have been overwhelmingly positive, and Harambee Arts currently has a long waiting list of potential partnering organizations throughout sub-Saharan Africa. Recent partnering organizations include:

AHOPE Orphanage CONNECT Institute of Family Therapy Daraja Academy Ethiopian Books for Children and Educational Foundation Girl Child Network Harare International Festival of the Arts International Child Resource Institute Africa J.F. Kapnek Trust Kenyatta Hospital Pediatrics Unit KidZCan

Mercy Corps International MUSTLE - Young Inititatives from Older Wisdom National Gallery of Zimbabwe Parirenyatwa Hospital Pediatrics Unit Repssi Streets Ahead Terre des Hommes (Switzerland) University of Nairobi Department of Psychology

Several large international organizations, including Save the Children U.K. and Mercy Corps International, have also requested trainings for their local staff. Partner organizations are identified by referrals and through networking at international conferences and local academic institutions.