REACH study (Salam Institute)

The aim of this project was to highlight the importance of forgiveness in Arab countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. It did so by expanding the application of the REACH program to Arabic-speaking communities. The REACH five-step forgiveness program has been tested in various regions worldwide, but not in the MENA region. This implementation study focused on three Arab countries—Tunisia, Egypt, and Iraq—all of which are post-conflict and/or have undergone political changes while experiencing rising levels of community violence in recent years. The REACH interpersonal forgiveness program which was developed by Worthington and colleagues (Wade, Hoyt, Kidwell, & Worthington, 2014) has shown promising results in other countries, and has proven to be both cost-effective and impactful when compared with control groups. With a population exceeding 300 million in the MENA region, developing and implementing contextually relevant workbooks provides a valuable opportunity to emphasize forgiveness and reconciliation at the individual level, while also generating new knowledge on the feasibility of the REACH model as an intervention in the region. Given the ongoing challenge of moving from deeply divided societies (ethnic, sectarian, and politically polarized etc.) toward social cohesion and stability, it is important to introduce frameworks for reconciliation and forgiveness in these three countries. Such transitions, through the rule of law, economic development, and transitional justice, can be best cemented at the interpersonal level and through education, building new models to address individual- and community-level conflicts. We hypothesized that, once adapted, the REACH program would have a higher impact in the intervention group as compared to the control group. Our study both addresses a current gap in interpersonal and community forgiveness literature and in the process offers a practical tool that can be implemented at the individual level. The REACH workbook was carefully reviewed, translated, and validated by Arabic-speaking academic experts in each of the three participating countries. The scales used in the international study were similarly translated and validated. From among the nine scales used that were used in the global study, the MENA validation panel selected the most appropriate ones to ensure sensitivity to local social, political, and cultural conditions. Once translation and validation were completed a sample of 600 participants was recruited in each country. This included teachers, counselors, students, and social workers. The study employed both a pre-post design and a control versus intervention comparison to evaluate the effectiveness of the REACH program. For more information, please visit: https://salaminstitute.org/