Promoting social cohesion, compassion and forgiveness among Rwandan survivors and perpetrators through community...

Introduction: The 1994 genocide against the Tutsi severely broke Rwandan society, leaving deep family and societal scars. Efforts to restore resilience and social cohesion hold promise but continue to face significant challenges. This study aimed to investigate whether the Community Resiliency Model (CRM) intervention was able to promote social cohesion, forgiveness, and compassion while strengthening personal resilience among survivors and released genocide perpetrators in post-genocide, Rwanda. We set out to address a methodological gap by exploring whether participants who experienced the Rwandan genocide do better in mixed groups versus homogeneous groups on key social function outcomes.Methods: A longitudinal randomized comparison group study design was employed to evaluate the impact of CRM on social cohesion, compassion, resilience, and forgiveness in a convenience sample of three comparison groups to which participants were randomly assigned: one with genocide survivors (N = 51), one with genocide perpetrators (N = 51), and one with a combination of both (N = 50). In August 2023, participants completed a consecutive three-day Community Resiliency Model (CRM) training in community settings. Data were collected using standardized tools at baseline, immediately after the intervention, and at six-month follow-up, between August 2023 and March 2024. ANOVA was conducted to identify significant differences among outcome variables.Results: The results showed that social cohesion (F(1) = 36.1, p < .001), compassion (F(1) = 131, p < .001), forgiveness (F(1) = 19.8, p < .001), and resilience (F(1) = 8.10, p = .005) significantly improved across all groups. Participants in the mixed group showed slightly more improvement than other groups, but the difference was not statistically significant.Conclusion: The results are promising, suggesting that CRM could serve as an effective intervention to address the challenges of rebuilding cohesive and resilient communities by improving social functioning in societies that have experienced fragmentation due to societal traumas.