About the Evaluation

Children in low-resource settings are highly vulnerable to trauma from adverse childhood events including abuse, famine, community violence, and political conflict. Interventions to address trauma’s harmful effects on children—especially programs created in the local context—are still urgently needed.

 

Singing to the Lions was created in Zimbabwe and later translated into 12 different languages with widespread use reported around the globe. Yet, although there were many personal accounts of STL's impact on children, the program's effects had never been formally tested.

 

Our team conducted a rigorous study (called a mixed-method cluster randomized controlled trial) to evaluate the effectiveness of Singing to the Lions for building resilience among vulnerable Zimbabwean youth.