Process support for Trauma-Informed and Decolonial Staff Care, Uganda

1.    Introduction and Background:

Since 1957, EIRENE International Christian Peace Service e.V. has been supporting partner organisations committed to non-violent civil conflict transformation and to socially just and environmentally sustainable change. Through its International Peace Cooperation (FriKo) programme, EIRENE supports Civil Peace Service (CPS) programmes in six regions across Africa and Latin America in collaboration with national partner organisations. In these regions, six coordinators are responsible for the CPS programmes on behalf of EIRENE.

The CPS operates along the entire cycle of conflict transformation: Early engagement to prevent the escalation of tensions into systemic violence; de-escalation and support for non-violent alternatives during active conflict phases; support for long-term reconciliation and dealing with a violent past to prevent the recurrence of conflict. CPS work is characterized by the following specific principles such as option for victims and survivors, partnerships, long-term commitment and global learning community.

In Uganda, EIRENE started its Civil Peace Service programme in partnership with four national organizations (ACFODE, ICSS, JESE and MACCO) in October 2025. Geographically the EIRENE CPS programme covers Wes Nile region and West Uganda and more particularly, the Bidibidi and Imvepi regugee settlement and host communities in West Nile and Kyaka II refugee settlement and host communities in Kyegegwa district in West Uganda.

I Can South Sudan (ICSS) and EIRENE's Civil Peace Service Uganda teams work directly alongside refugee and host communities in Bidi Bidi settlements, communities living through active war, hunger, and displacement. Staff listen, day after day, to first-hand accounts of violence, loss and survival. This exposure carries a cumulative toll: staff are trained in peacebuilding, with basic training in how to hold what they hear, but the depth and consistency of that support has not kept pace with what the work demands.

Half of the ICSS staff are themselves refugees, carrying their own history of displacement alongside what they now witness in others, while feeling they must stay strong for those around them. Team members report of not knowing how to respond to the suffering and wounds they have to witness through their interactions with the community members. Especially now when international funds have reduced and many partners have left; more expectations are put on the remaining community-based teams like ICSS.

This consultancy responds directly to that gap: a generative, trauma-informed, decolonial process, grounded in real conversation, that allows staff to be met in what they carry, build trust, and move toward a sustainable, resourced way of responding to the effects of historic wounds and current challenges the team members are going through. The approach draws on trauma-informed principles adapted to staff themselves as trauma-holders rather than only to the communities they serve.

2. Purpose and objective of the Assignment:

The Consultant will support ICSS South Sudan primarily to:

-      Build staff's own trauma-informed knowledge base and trauma-responsive ways of working and living on three levels: 1) personal, 2) organisational 3) in interaction with the communities.

-      Process the cumulative impact of hearing first-hand accounts of war, hunger and displacement, without retriggering or re-traumatising staff.

-      Define, in their own words, what they need from this engagement, rather than have a framework imposed on them.

-      Design processes and resources based on the results of the previous point.

The consultancy process shall:

-      Honour the specific experience of staff who are themselves refugees.

-      Build trust between staff and the Consultant, and among staff themselves.

-      Archive staff voice and experience as an act of honouring their pain.

-      Apply decolonial frameworks throughout, reflecting staff's own ways of knowing and healing.

3.    Scope of Work and Methodology

The Consultant will:

-      Facilitate an open, participatory process in which staff define their own needs and goals for the engagement.

-      Hold space for staff to process what they carry, using dialogue itself as a healing method.

-      Apply trauma-informed principles to reduce the harm of being retraumatised.

-      Give particular attention to staff with personal refugee or displacement history.

-      Strengthen staff's trauma-informed knowledge base through teaching and lived, embodied practice.

-      Leave a process design and resources, which ICSS can further utilise for their trauma-informed and trauma-responsive work on the mentioned 3 levels.

Deliver the engagement in phases: a virtual objective-review session with EIRENE CPS Coordinator and ICSS programme manager; virtual presentations, trainings and reflections with the core group of ICSS, plus three in-presence work in West Nile; a mid-observation report after the first in-presence work, and a final End Report, co-produced, covering whole intervention and recommendations for the future action.

Provide the funder with structured observational updates throughout the engagement, covering what worked, challenges, and an operational summary of days and session lengths delivered.

Produce a comprehensive End Report at the close of the engagement, covering recommendations, and next steps.

Participants

This consultancy is scoped to the ICSS team (all staff members who are willing to take part), EIRENE Civil Peace Service Uganda staff, and the Consultant. Community actors, elders, and other wider stakeholder groups are not part of this engagement at this stage.

Participants will be expected to engage actively in both in-presence and virtual sessions, share at their own pace and choice, and apply trauma-informed, decolonial practices within their own teams going forward.

The process is a consent-based invitation and does not require participants to disclose personal traumatic experiences.

Expected Outcomes:

-      Staff will have a strengthened capacity to hold what they hear without becoming retriggered or stuck in a loop.

-      Staff will have a stronger trauma-informed knowledge base and trauma-responsive processes design in their work with communities and within their teams

-      The organisation will have a staff-informed, rather than externally imposed, framework for ongoing trauma-informed team care.

-      Staff with personal refugee or displacement history will have been specifically seen and supported.

-      Trust between staff and the Consultant, and among staff, will be strengthened.

-      EIRENE will have clear visibility into what worked and what is recommended next.

5.  Required Qualifications:

-      10 years of experience in trauma-informed healing training and practice.

-      Proven expertise in decolonial practices, with emphasis on indigenous approaches.

-      Strong facilitation skills in participatory workshops involving diverse stakeholders.

-      Sensitivity to issues of gender, age, and inclusion in trauma-informed processes.

-      Strong knowledge/Experience in peace building or community-based programming and refugee support work

-      Ability to work with interpreters and ensure inclusivity across refugee and host community participants.

-      Fluent in English, knowledge of local languages is of asset such as Juba Arabic, Lugbara, etc.

6.    Logistics and timing

The consultancy requires a total of up to 30 working days, allocated across three phases of in-presence meetings (up to 24 working days) and online engagements online inclusive of preparation, facilitation of online sessions and reporting (up to 6 days) within the timeframe of October 2026 –March 2027. The location of in-presence engagements are West Nile and Kampala in Uganda. EIRENE Coordination office will prepare the logistical aspects of the onsite visits: The hotel and the transportation to the West Nile including airport pick up and drop will be covered by the Coordination office.

7.    Reporting and Supervision

The Consultant will report directly to Ada Hakobyan, Head of Coordination Office, Civil Peace Service Uganda, EIRENE Internationaler Christlicher Friedensdienst e.V., in coordination with Esther Atem, Programme Manager, ICSS

8.    Confidentiality obligation

The consultant shall treat all information received in the course of the collaboration about the client, its cooperation partners, and employees as strictly confidential, insofar as this information is not already publicly known. The same applies to any knowledge of organizational processes that the consultant acquires in connection with the collaboration. The obligation of confidentiality shall continue to apply even after the end of the contract.

9.    Submission of bids and selection

The bidders are requested to submit a concise proposal consisting of the following documents:

-      Technical Proposal (max. 3 pages): outlining the bidder’s understanding of the assignment and the proposed methodology,

-      Financial Proposal: including a transparent budget with the proposed daily fee and any estimated travel and related costs and

-      CV and References of similar assignments successfully completed: an updated CV highlighting relevant experience in line with the required qualifications, including a list of relevant assignments

These should be submitted in one pdf file not exceeding 8 MG with to  hakobyan@eirene.org  with the subject line “Application trauma-informed team care” no later than 14th of September. Online or onsite interviews are planned for the 17th and 148h of September.

For further questions you can refer to Ada Hakobyan at hakobyan@eirene.org . For general information about EIRENE please visit our website at http://www.eirene.org  

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