A Call for “Wounded Healers”: Dr. Tecla Wanjala Presents a Paradigm for Social Healing in Peacebuilding
In a keynote address launching Hekima University College’s Fourth Annual Research Week, renowned scholar-practitioner Dr. Tecla Wanjala issued a compelling call for a paradigm shift in peacebuilding, moving beyond material and political frameworks to center social healing as the core of sustainable conflict transformation.
The event, held under the theme “Reimagining Resilience, Governance and Social Transformation in a Changing World,” provided the platform for Dr. Wanjala’s robust critique. Drawing from her decades of fieldwork—from supporting refugees in Bungoma to mediating communal violence in Mount Elgon—she theorized violence not merely as isolated incidents, but as a cyclical phenomenon of intergenerational trauma. She argued that this cycle is perpetuated by unaddressed historical injustices and systemic political exclusion, which create a legacy of pain passed down through generations.
Central to her thesis was a poignant ethical question posed to the audience: “How do we live together with those who killed our loved ones?” This question, she contended, reveals the limitation of conventional peacebuilding, which often overlooks the profound psychosocial wounds that outlast formal ceasefires. Dr. Wanjala elaborated that the very process of conflict operates through a “dehumanization of the other,” a ritualistic stripping away of empathy that makes future coexistence seem impossible.
In response, Dr. Wanjala proposed a transformative framework grounded in the concept of the “wounded healer.”
“For one to reconcile communities, one needs to rise from being a wounded victim to a wounded healer,” she asserted. “I am a wounded healer.” This model, she explained, requires peacebuilders to acknowledge their own trauma to authentically facilitate healing in others, thereby transforming personal pain into a professional capacity for deep empathy.
Her critique specifically targeted dominant, externally imposed aid models that focus myopically on material reconstruction (e.g., infrastructure, food, shelter) while neglecting the inner dimensions of recovery. As a corrective, she advocated for an endogenous approach rooted in African restorative justice traditions. These traditions, she clarified, focus on rehabilitating social bonds and restoring a sense of shared humanity. Within this process, she identified structured storytelling and narrative mediation as critical methodologies, allowing communities to articulate trauma in symbolic, non-linear ways that “words alone cannot.”
A trailblazer in her field, Dr. Wanjala holds a Ph.D. in Peace and Conflict Studies. She served as Acting Chairperson of Kenya’s Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission, becoming the first woman to lead such a body, and was nominated for the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize.
By Chancy Mterera, SMM
