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✦ How We Work

The iGrawe core model.

Narrative therapy meets African cultural wisdom meets psychosocial education. This is how we do it — and why the combination is irreplaceable for African children and youth.

See it in action

✦ The Foundation

Three bodies of knowledge. One integrated practice.

The iGrawe core model is not a curriculum imported from elsewhere and adapted for African contexts. It is built from the inside — with African cultural wisdom as the starting point, narrative therapy as the methodology, and psychosocial education as the structure.

These three traditions are not simply combined. They are woven together into a practice that is genuinely new — grounded in research, responsive to community, and held with the same care we ask children to bring to their own stories.

At the centre of everything is one belief: a child who knows their story cannot easily be erased.

See it in a Story Lab
The Child's
Inner World
StoryNaming feelings
CultureAfrican roots
IdentityRe-authoring
SafetyTrauma-aware

✦ The Three Roots

Where our practice comes from

iGrawe draws from three distinct traditions — each essential, none sufficient on its own.

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Narrative Therapy
Developed by Michael White and David Epston, narrative therapy holds that people are not their problems — and that dominant stories can be questioned and re-authored. At iGrawe, we invite children to tell a story, then gently help them find a different way to read it. One where they are not the wound. They are the one who carried it.
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African Cultural Wisdom
African oral tradition, proverb, naming practices, communal ritual, and intergenerational storytelling are not decorative additions to the iGrawe model. They are the curriculum. Ubuntu — the understanding that a person is a person through other people — is the relational foundation that every story lab is built on.
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Psychosocial Education
Psychosocial education addresses the intersection of psychological wellbeing and social context — recognising that a child's emotional world cannot be separated from their community, history, and culture. iGrawe's model is trauma-aware, meaning we design every session to honour children's realities without ever pushing beyond what a child is ready to share.

✦ Four Pillars of Practice

Built on four pillars of practice

Each pillar is essential. Remove any one and the model ceases to be what it is.

01
Narrative Wellbeing

Story-based psychosocial support that builds emotional literacy, self-understanding, and healthy identity through structured narrative practice. This is not creative writing. It is the use of story as a mirror — a way of seeing oneself more clearly, and more kindly.

Naming feelings through storyChildren who cannot name what they feel cannot manage it. Narrative prompts give them language — not clinical vocabulary, but their own words, in their own voice.
Re-authoring dominant storiesMany African children carry stories about themselves that were given to them by others — by failure, by loss, by comparison. Narrative wellbeing helps them examine those stories and find truer ones.
Building narrative identityA child with a coherent narrative about who they are and where they come from is more resilient, more connected, and more able to face difficulty without losing themselves.
See it in a Story Lab →
"iGrawe gave me words for things I had been feeling since I was six."— Youth participant, secondary school, Kigali

✦ Narrative Therapy in Practice

From dominant story
to preferred story

Narrative therapy is built on a simple but radical idea: the stories we tell about ourselves are not fixed truths. They are interpretations — shaped by culture, experience, and the voices of others. And interpretations can be questioned.

iGrawe uses the core steps of narrative therapy in every Story Lab — adapted for an African context, facilitated by trained practitioners, and held with the kind of care that makes re-authoring possible.

1
Externalisation — the problem is not the person
"I am stupid" becomes "I have been told a story about my intelligence." The child and the problem are not the same thing.
2
Deconstruction — examining the dominant story
Where did this story come from? Who told it? What does it leave out? Children are gently invited to examine the stories they carry — with curiosity, not judgment.
3
Unique outcomes — finding the exceptions
Every dominant story has exceptions. "You said you always give up. Tell me about a time you didn't." The exception becomes the door.
4
Re-authoring — writing a preferred story
From the exceptions, a new story begins to emerge. Not a fantasy — a truer account of who the child is, built from their own evidence and held by their own words.
5
Witnessing — the story is heard
The new story needs an audience. In iGrawe's Story Labs, the group becomes the witnessing community. The story is held by more than one person now.

✦ What Sets Us Apart

Not therapy. Not school.
Something more.

iGrawe occupies a unique space that most institutions don't — and that African children desperately need.

🌱
Rooted from the inside, not adjusted from the outside
Most psychosocial programmes available to African schools are Western frameworks with African examples inserted. iGrawe starts from African oral tradition, communal knowing, and cultural wisdom — and builds outward. This is not a small distinction. It changes everything about how children receive the work.
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Trauma-aware at every level — not just in facilitation
Being trauma-aware is not a facilitation technique at iGrawe. It is a design principle. It shapes the prompts we choose, the way we train facilitators, the structure of every session, and the safeguarding policies we hold. It is not an add-on. It is the architecture.
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Re-authoring, not re-telling
Many wellbeing programmes ask children to share their story. iGrawe goes further: we guide children to re-author it. To find the identity that exists beyond and beneath the wound. To tell a story that is theirs — not the one that was handed to them.
🤝
Community-accountable, not just community-informed
Many organisations consult communities. iGrawe answers to them. When our model needs to change — because a school tells us something isn't working, or because an elder challenges a cultural assumption — we change. Community accountability is a practice, not a principle.

✦ Evidence & Impact

In motion, already.

iGrawe is a young organisation doing honest work. These are our numbers — early, real, and still growing.

200+
Young people reached in our first year of school-based programming
iGrawe programme data, 2024–2025
100%
Of participating teachers reported a positive shift in student emotional expression
Post-programme teacher surveys, Kigali pilots
3
School pilot programmes completed — with qualitative outcomes documented across all three
iGrawe pilot evaluation reports, 2025
“
“After the story lab, one student who hadn't spoken in class for months wrote two pages. Her teacher cried. So did I. That is not a curriculum outcome. That is a child finding her voice.”— Secondary school teacher, Kigali pilot programme, 2025
3
Kigali schools currently in active partnership with iGrawe
5+
Schools in active conversation about upcoming programmes
∞
Stories told, held, and honoured in our sessions

✦ Safety First. Always.

Safeguarding is not a feature. It's the foundation.

Every element of the iGrawe model is designed to ensure children's physical, emotional, and psychological safety — before anything else.

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Child Safeguarding Policy
All iGrawe practitioners operate under our full Child Safeguarding Policy — applied consistently, updated regularly, and available on request.
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Privacy & Consent
Children's stories, identities, and voices are never shared or used without explicit, informed consent from both the child and their guardian.
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Trauma-Aware Design
Every session is designed so that whatever a child brings on a given day is enough. We never push. We create safety, then gently invite. Healing cannot be scheduled.
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Mandatory Reporting
Facilitators are trained in mandatory reporting protocols. Any safeguarding concern is reported immediately — in line with school, community, and national requirements.

✦ Questions About the Model

Things people often want to understand

See the model in action.

The best way to understand the iGrawe core model is not to read about it — it is to experience it. Bring a Story Lab to your school.

info@igrawe.org · +250 792 864 816 · Africa-based · Community-rooted