Regional Psychosocial Support Initiative (REPSSI)

REPSSI (Regional Psychosocial Support Initiative) is a non-profit organisation working to lessen the devastating social and emotional (psychosocial) impact of poverty, conflict, HIV and AIDS among children and youth across East and Southern Africa. REPSSI champions systematic mainstreaming of psychosocial support into social development, health and education programmes and services for communities, families, girls, boys and youth, taking into account their evolving developmental stages. We focuse on strengthening and reinforcing systems of care and protection by ensuring that psychosocial support is integrated into these services. Psychosocial support entails encouraging better connections between people, building a better sense of self and community, and promoting gender-specific, everyday, consistent care and support for children, their families and communities. Caring and respectful relationships that communicate understanding, respect, trust, tolerance and acceptance, help lessen the stressful impact of vulnerabilities as the resilience of children, families and communities is strengthened. Our assistance includes providing easy-to-use and culturally appropriate tools, and sharing innovative approaches. We train partners to provide social and emotional services to children and their communities, and we produce activities and tools that can be used with children, youth, communities and families. We currently work in 13 countries in East and Southern Africa: Angola, Botswana, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe.