The existence of orphans is as inevitable to most African cities and the world as it is death. These orphans are caused by the death of one or both parents due to various reasons, including the scourge of HIV and AIDS. Being orphans, most of them are vulnerable to difficult lives because they have nobody to fend for them and take care of their lives. They lack adequate food, living expenses, school fees, and care since their current guardians are also in adverse economic situations. In such situations, orphans end up living a life of hopelessness and trauma, which makes them deeply remember their dead parents and the care they received from them before death. Following the vulnerable situation of most orphans, this book, through a study done in the Tanzanian context, challenges churches to extend their counseling and caring ministries to Orphans and Vulnerable Children (OVC). It purports that the use of narrative approach is the most effective way to enter into the world of vulnerable children in order to provide pastoral counseling to them. This approach helps pastoral counselors to use life stories, proverbs, biblical narratives, plays, arts, songs, riddles, poems, symbols, and images as healing and coping mechanisms for OVC. Therefore, this book is helpful not only to churches and their ministry to orphans and vulnerable children, but also to those who care for orphans in their homes. Moreover, it will be helpful to children who live in adverse conditions worldwide to find ways to cope with their situations through the stories of children used inside this book.

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In Africa, as in many parts of the world, adolescent reproductive health is a controversial issue for policy makers and programme planners. Adolescents are particularly vulnerable to HIV and AIDS and to a host of other problems such as sexually transmitted infection, unwanted pregnancy, unsafe abortions, sexual abuse, female genital mutilation and unsafe circumcision. Yet many countries do not have adolescent health policies in place and much remains to be done to ensure that adolescents can access appropriate sexual and reproductive health services. The authors of this volume present new perspectives and strategies to promote adolescent sexual and reproductive health. In particular, they make a unique attempt to bring together social and biomedical science and to disseminate concrete empirical evidence from existing programmes, carefully analysing what works and what does not at the local level.

The editors of Health Communication in Africa have assembled an impressive list of scholars and practitioners to discuss some of the public health efforts and disease prevention strategies, conspicuously absent in health communication literature. A variety of subjects are addressed, including: existing and innovative health promotion programs; outcome evaluation and effectiveness studies; health communication in refugee settings and among international, national, and regional agencies that have been successfully implemented.

This book has gone through various editions or versions. The "First Version" was given as a paper on "Small Christian Communities in the AMECEA Region: An Evaluation of their Growth and Impact" at the 13th Interdisciplinary Theological Session on the theme "The Faculty of Theology of CUEA Celebrates the Golden Jubilee of AMECEA" at the Catholic University of Eastern Africa (CUEA) in Nairobi, Kenya on 3 March, 2011. Many papers were presented at this conference covering the 50 years of AMECEA under three headings: Part I: "Deeper Evangelization. Part II: "Formation and Education." Part III: "Church Life, Organization and Structures." I specifically treated the topic of "Small Christian Communities" under Part III. Many pastoral leaders including the AMECEA bishops recommended the importance of a thorough critical evaluation and assessment of SCCs to learn from the past and to help plan for the future. Note this is Volume Two of a two volume book. Volume one of this book is also available on AMAZON.

Up to a third of patients obtaining primary care services are suffering from psychological problems and the primary health care team deals with the majority. In this volume, experts from a wide range of mental health care disciplines discuss issues ranging from primary prevention with identification of risk to early identification of problem symptoms and the effective management of long-term mental illness. With full reference to the current state of research, emphasis has been given to practical measures that can be readily utilized in the primary care setting. This handbook will serve as an invaluable resource for all those with interests in the protection and conservation of mental health.