The Safari Concept: An African Framework for End of Life Care

There is a Rwandan saying, "When you are well, you belong to yourself. But when you are sick, you belong to your family."
Understanding the suffering of seriously ill patients is crucial for providing compassionate and practical support to those individuals and their loved ones, which may include immediate family members and whole communities. Through personal stories, research-based insights, and practical guidance, this book helps readers develop the skills and resources necessary to provide holistic and empathetic support to those facing the end of life.
The Safari Concept is a groundbreaking approach to palliative care that transcends cultural and linguistic barriers. By recognizing the importance of family and community in African cultures, the concept invites them to participate with medical caregivers in decision-making and care, as they have for millennia. Using animal archetypes as metaphors, the concept provides a powerful framework for characterizing patterns of a family's suffering and identifying the healthcare team's most effective responses for addressing their physical, emotional, and spiritual needs.

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Biography: Dr. Christian Ntizimira is the author of “The Safari Concept: An African Framework on End-of-Life Care” and Founder/Executive Director of the African Center for Research on End-of-Life Care (ACREOL), a non-profit organization to bring socio-cultural equality through “Ubuntu in End-of-life Care” in Africa. He is a Fulbright Alumnus and graduated from Harvard Medical School, Department of Global Health and Social Medicine. Dr. Ntizimira is also an alumnus of the Kofi Annan Global Health Leadership programme, which aims to bring selected Africans to strategize, manage and lead public health programs that will transform public health in Africa.

Dr. Ntizimira is the winner of the prestigious Tällberg-Stavros Niarchos Foundation-Eliasson Global Leadership Prize in 2021 for his passionate advocacy for palliative care in Rwanda and elsewhere in Africa, based on his deeply held belief that dignified end-of-life care is a human right.