Global Partnership, Local Leadership: Supporting Resilience in Children and Families Across Generations

We are excited to share that a new international project is underway, bringing together partners from around the world we explore how we can support children and families facing difficult circumstances.

This project is a collaboration between University College London (UCL), Uyisenga Ni Imanzi (UNM) in Rwanda, and several partner organisations from Family for Every Child (Family)—a global alliance of organisations working to keep children safe and connected to their families.

This work builds on the success of the Nkwihoreze project, which developed creative tools to help families talk about their experiences and strengthen their emotional wellbeing. Now, we are exploring how could the Nkwihoreze approach, developed in Rwanda under the local leadership of UNM, could work in other countries and communities.

Why This Matters

Millions of children around the world are affected by conflict, poverty, and family separation. Many live in institutions or face challenges that make it hard to grow up in safe, loving homes. Local organisations often struggle to meet these needs because of limited resources and the lack of tools that would sensitively respond to specific cultural needs and values of the communities in which they work.

Too often, support for children focuses only on trauma and overlooks the strengths that can exist within families. Our tools are designed to support families in building resilience and connecting and re-connecting with each other.

Why Local Leadership Matters

Local leadership is essential because communities know their own stories, traditions, and challenges best. When tools and resources are created with strong local input, they are more likely to reflect the values, languages, and lived experiences of the people who will use them. This makes the materials more meaningful, respectful, and effective. By working closely with local organisations and leaders, we ensure that the tools we collaboratively develop are truly rooted in the culture and context of each community.

What We’re Doing

Together, we are working to:

1. Adapt Nkwihoreze Tools for Local Contexts

We are exploring how the Nkwihoreze tools can be adapted to fit the unique cultures, languages, histories and challenges of communities in Colombia, Kyrgyzstan, Indonesia, and Nepal.

2. Test the Tools in Practice

We are running small pilot projects in each country to see how the tools work in real-life settings, guided by the needs and expertise of local professionals and families.

3. Share What We Learn

We will bring together insights from our partners and share it here. We hope our findings can help inform future research, policy and practice.

Our Partners

The following organisations, members of the Family For Every Child alliance, are collaborating with us on this project:

Semya Kazhdomu Rebenku (SKR), Kyrgyzstan - supports foster families and children by providing monitoring and social support to strengthen the foster care system

Muhammadiyah, Indonesia - working to end residential care and promoting family-based care

Voice of Children (VoC), Nepal - works with street-connected children and their families

VoC: Facebook, YouTube, Instgram, LinkedIn

Taller De Vida, Colombia - works with children affected by the armed conflict in Colombia

Uyisenga Ni Imanzi (UNM), Rwanda – works with families affected by genocide, HIV/AIDS, poverty & violence

UNM: Instagram

What next

We will share our learning and findings here on the www.nkwihoreze.org site and via the Nkwihoreze social media channels. Follow us on Instagram and YouTube to keep up to date.

This project is funded by UCL’s Global Engagement Fund.