As part of the ICC-ordered reparations process following the conviction of Dominic Ongwen for war crimes and crimes against humanity, Voices That Count was commissioned by the Trust Fund for Victims to conduct a large-scale, story-based baseline study in northern Uganda. The goal was to help shape a reparations programme grounded in the lived realities of victims—one that reflects their own definitions of recognition, healing, and justice.
What were the key steps?
We designed and implemented a large-scale narrative inquiry using SenseMaker®, by collecting over 1,000 anonymous microstories from people affected by Dominic Ongwen’s crimes on how these atrocities still impact people’s lives today, 20 years after the main attacks. A significant number of young people born during or after the armed conflict were included in the story-listening. Each story was first interpreted by the person who told it.
Local community members were trained to serve as story collectors. As many victims have been stigmatized—especially former child soldiers and women abducted for sexual slavery (both forcefully conscripted by Ongwen’s rebel army) —a sensitive, compassionate approach was key for people to open up and share how the atrocities still affect their lives.
SenseMaker® combines narrative insight with data analytics. In practice, this means it's possible to extract, visualize, and present key patterns emerging from the stories, tailored to the overarching questions the project aims to answer.
We then invited community members, cultural and religious leaders, psychosocial workers, NGOs, and institutional actors to:
This multi-stakeholder group also identified additional themes, needs and reparation measures that might otherwise have been missed.
What added value does this approach bring?
What can we learn from the Uganda story for other complex contexts?
This approach isn’t only for post-conflict settings. It is valuable anywhere complexity is high, change is ongoing, or conventional tools fall short. Especially where lived experience is central to understanding what's happening.
Some practical applications include:
What turns this from a method into a game changer?
What makes the approach powerful—besides the value of the stories themselves—is how they are gathered, interpreted, and turned into action:
For organizations working in complexity—across public systems, social change, or the private sector—this approach supports a shift from consultation to real engagement, from input to insight.
It helps surface what’s hard to say. And brings into focus what’s easy to overlook.