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Great Lakes Initiative Seeks to Bridge Ethnic Divisions in Burundi
June 5, 2008: "In Burundi, every person can be considered a survivor of conflict," says Adrien Niyongabo of the Friends Peace Team in Bujumbura, a Quaker initiative.
Half of all Quakers in the world are living in Africa and many reside in the Great Lakes region. In 1997, the Quakers in Burundi launched a new program, the African Great Lakes Initiative, to address the violence that gripped the region.
They asked themselves why, in spite of the recurring nature of violence, there was no real effort to provide sustained psycho-social counseling. As Mr Niyongabo explained to Survivor Corps, many villagers suffer from acute trauma or post-traumatic stress disorder. Many need specialized care.
The Quakers sought to analyze the root cause. Before the conflict in 1993, Hutu and Tutsi lived together in villages. When the violence erupted, Tutsis fled to IDP camps for security. Many have remained there ever since while the Hutus have remained in the villages. Because of continued fear of violence, neither side crosses over to the other.
One project of the Great Lakes Initiative, known as ‘The Healing and Reconciliation in Our Communities’ employs community facilitators who bring together groups of about twenty Hutu and Tutsis for workshops. 100 workshops have been hosted throughout the country so far, involving around 2,000 participants.
Initially the workshops took place at local meeting houses, which were considered safe by both sides. But a recent study recommended more focus on the communities with the greatest needs, and the program will now work in six districts and host some workshops in the villages instead of the meetinghouse.
This, it is hoped, will reduce the alienation felt by both communities. The village is important in Burundian culture, and birth rituals link a person to their village by burying the umbilical cord in the village where they were born. Because of their exclusion from the villages, many Tutsi in particular feel a sense of dislocation. Hutus who are returning from the refugee camps in Tanzania will be included in the workshops, to increase their sense of reintegration.
The workshops employ several techniques to facilitate healing. One involves active listening. Another is the sharing of individual stories which allows Hutu to hear stories of Tutsis’ suffering and Tutsi to hear of Hutus’ suffering. The workshops also seek to illustrate the “roots and fruits of trust and mistrust.”
The African Great Lakes Initiative runs several other programs, aimed at promoting reconciliation. One is an ‘Alternatives to Violence Program.’ First used in prisons in New York State, the program focuses on child soldiers, ex-combatants and community members, and offers alternatives to violence. The program argues that violence cannot resolve conflicts, but only leads to more violence.
A second program seeks to empower women and runs an HIV/AIDS clinic that is entirely staffed by women.
While much of the current focus is on the direct impact of conflict, Mr Niyongabo also laid out other threats to Burundi’s long-suffering population - including the rising price of food, climate change combined with faltering rainfalls, and HIV/AIDS.