Programs
Tsungai Initiative Program Model: A Journey
Young people move through a four-stage, trauma-informed growth pathway – from awareness to action.
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Youth explore the hidden stories, beliefs, and emotions passed down through generations.
They discover their voice, process inherited emotions, and shape a positive sense of self.
They reconnect with culture, community, and others - becoming bridges between generations.
Youth envision and build a future beyond trauma - as leaders, creators, and changemakers.
Our Four Programs
Our programs help young people recognize the cycles they have inherited, and equip them with the tools to break them. We help build the emotional literacy and leadership needed to create new legacies.
Intergenerational Trauma Awareness
You can not heal from what you do not understand
🧠 Roots and Restoration
We help families and communities understand how trauma is passed down — and how to break the cycle. This program creates healing-centered spaces where youth, caregivers, and elders come together to reflect, talk, and grow emotionally.
Activities include:
- Emotional literacy and boundary-setting training
- Family Story Mapping: Young people draw or write a map of their family history, highlighting moments of strength, migration, silence, or struggle.
- Circle Dialogues: Guided peer or intergenerational conversations using restorative practices to open up about emotions, loss, and hope.
- Visual Journaling: Art-based journaling sessions exploring what emotions have been passed down, and what they want to let go of.
- “Letters to the Past” Workshop: Young people write letters to previous generations, sharing what they wish they had or want to understand.
- Trauma + Healing Education (Simplified): Facilitated sessions introducing the science of trauma and healing.
🌀 Emotional Outcome: Youth begin to realize “It’s not just me,” releasing shame and gaining context for their experiences.
What changes:
It is important for young people to understand the roots of their emotional challenges, so that they stop blaming themselves, and start creating change.
Communities gain emotional understanding. Generational silence turns into connection. Youth feel seen, supported, and safe.
Self Expression & Positive Identity Development
Confidence grows through creativity
🎭 Own Your Story
When young people have the space and tools to express who they are, healing begins. Through art, music, movement, and storytelling, this program helps youth process their emotions, celebrate who they are, and develop a powerful sense of identity.
Activities include:
- Identity coaching and small group dialogues
- The “I Am” Series: Poetry, zine-making, or digital storytelling around themes like “I Am From…”, “I Am Because…”, “I Am Becoming…”.
- Creative Arts Lab: Encouraging safe emotional release and personal storytelling.
- Mirror Work + Affirmation Building: Guided self-affirmation exercises and reflection practices to build positive self-image.
- Cultural Self-Portraits: Young people create mixed media self-portraits combining cultural elements, personal dreams, and identity statements.
- Peer Recognition Circles: Safe circles where youth name each other’s strengths and contributions, building communal affirmation.
🌀 Emotional Outcome: Young people develop voice, confidence, and a grounded sense of who they are.
What changes:
When young people understand and express themselves, they stop repeating the emotional patterns of past generations.
Confidence grows. Pain is expressed through creativity. Pride replaces shame. Youth become bold in their truth.
Community Creators & Cultural Connectors
Belonging heals disconnection
🌍 Homegrown Power
This is where young people become leaders — not just in their futures, but in their communities. Reconnecting with heritage, so they can lead change.
Activities include:
- Community design challenges and local innovation
- Mentorship between youth and elders or artisans
- Story Circles with Elders: Young people host storytelling gatherings with community elders to collect, document, and celebrate local wisdom.
- Healing Mural Projects: Youth design and paint murals that reflect cultural pride, healing, or community dreams. Cultural mapping and heritage archiving.
- Cultural Exchange Days: Hands-on days where youth teach or learn traditional skills – food, crafts, language – with family or neighbors.
- “Memory Walks”: Guided explorations of neighborhoods or villages, collecting stories and emotions tied to physical spaces.
- Youth-Led Cultural Events: Mini-festivals, exhibitions, or open mics curated and hosted by youth for the community.
🌀 Emotional Outcome: Youth feel a sense of belonging and pride, healing relational wounds by becoming bridge-builders.
What changes:
Healing isn’t only individual, it happens in communities, and young people become the ones who lead that process.
Youth reclaim cultural pride and design new solutions. Elders pass down knowledge. Communities grow stronger across generations.
Future Innovators
Hope is a powerful antidote to despair
🚀 Futures Lab
This is where underserved youth become tech creators, digital artists, entrepreneurs, and problem solvers. We provide future-ready tools that open up new opportunities for work, impact, and purpose.
Activities include:
- Future Talks: With entrepreneurs and innovators
- Trauma-Informed Hackathons: Young people form teams to design apps, social campaigns, or tools that respond to issues they care about.
- Digital Storytelling Studio: Teaching youth how to create short films, podcasts, or animations about their lived experiences.
- Social Enterprise Bootcamps: Intro to how to build purpose-driven businesses or community projects that tackle inherited issues.
- Community Challenge Labs: Youth identify a local cycle for example lack of access to resources access, school dropout, – and design solutions.
- Legacy Vision Boards: Personal + group sessions mapping out the kind of future they want to build for their generation and beyond.
🌀 Emotional Outcome: Youth feel empowered to not just heal, but lead change, turning their past into purpose.
What changes:
Trauma may have shaped the past, but innovation and imagination can define the future.
Skills are built. Dreams are activated. Youth turn bold ideas into action, from the community, for the community.