|
Role
of Traditional Healers in Psychosocial Support in Caring for the Orphans:
A case of Dar-es Salaam City, Tanzania
Edmund J.
Kayombo,
Institute of
traditional Medicine,
Muhimbili
University College of Health Sciences, Dar-es-Salaam,
(Tanzania)
Orphans are an increasing problem in developing countries;
and needs collective effort in intervention processes by including all
stakeholders right from the grass root level. This paper attempts to
present the role of traditional healers in psychosocial support for orphan
children in Dar-es-Salaam City with special focus to those whose parents
have died because of HIV/AIDS.
Six traditional healers who were involved in taking care
orphans were visited at their “vilinge” (traditional clinics). In
total they had 72 orphans, 31 being boys and 41 being girls with age range
from 3 years to 19. It was learned that traditional healers, besides
providing remedies to illnesses/diseases to orphans, they also provided
other basic needs. Further, they even provided psychosocial support so
that children can cope with orphan hood life with easy. Traditional
healers are living within communities at grassroot level; and it appears
to be a hidden force unnoticed which is involved in taking care orphans.
The role of traditional healers in taking care orphans need to
be reckoned with and even scaling it up by empowering them both financial
and training on basic skills of psychosocial techniques on how to handle
orphans so that we reduce discrimination and stigmatization in communities
where they live.
|
