ìAfrika has officially launched the Healing Soulidarity Virtual Project (HSVP), a campaign designed to cultivate online conversations centred around healing justice and communal soulidarity (Ubuntu). This initiative emphasises the significance of self and collective care in our intra and interpersonal lives.

The primary objective of the HSVP campaign is to raise awareness about healing justice as a pathway to resilience, restoration, and liberation. This campaign sparks conversations that explore complex aspects of healing and it is open to the public. ìAfrika through HSVP encourages individuals to share their personal healing journeys and experiences to expand our empirical understanding of intergenerational and collective healing.

The HSVP campaign is structured around three key segments:

• “Let’s Talk Healing,”
• “Let’s Do Healing,”
• “Let’s Walk Healing.”

Each segment poses a question designed to draw responses that deepen the general understanding of healing; what it is and how it is defined. It goes further to explore how people are approaching their healing as well as driving and achieving collective care within their communities.

1. Let’s Talk Healing

The first question, “What does healing mean to/for you?” invites participants to define healing from their perspectives. This segment captures diverse definitions of healing, ultimately contributing to a broader, more inclusive understanding. Participants get to share what they consider healing to be, based on their experiences and their interactions with the topic.

2. Let’s Do Healing

The second question, “What do you do for your healing?” encourages individuals to share their unique healing practices. Participants get to share what works for them in their healing journeys and what their routines look like, especially through a holistic lens. By exchanging personal methods of healing via this conversation, others can gain new ideas and approaches to incorporate into their healing routines.

3. Let’s Walk Healing

The third question, “How do you walk with others in healing solidarity?” focuses on collective care and Ubuntuism. Participants get to share how they collaborate and support others in healing practices within their communities. From this, others can learn new ways and introduce holistic initiatives to support their communities.

HSVP Sentiment

Through these three segments, ìAfrika aims to create a comprehensive dialogue that helps people articulate, reflect, and share their healing practices and processes. This series of conversations not only enhances individual and collective healing but also raises awareness about the broader implications of healing justice, as it relates to resilience, restoration, and liberation.

HSVP is one of many initiatives in line with ìAfrika’s mission to advance restorative healing and promote Ubuntu culture across Africa through a holistic and empirical restorative healing research and praxis agenda. By addressing and transforming contemporary manifestations of intergenerational and collective traumas, ìAfrika seeks to promote social cohesion and improve the structural, cultural, relational, and personal wellbeing of Africans.

It represents a significant early step in ìAfrika’s ongoing efforts to create a more just, resilient, and connected society. Through open dialogue and shared experiences, the project aims to encourage people to deepen their understanding of healing and soulidarity while drawing important insights from the conversations.