Burundi - Journal Letter - March 2010

Dear Friends,

As the first half of my placement draws to an end, I realise how much I have already learnt during my time here in Burundi. This placement represents my first experience of working for a peacebuilding organisation and I am constantly awed by the personal testimonies of individuals whose lives and communities have been transformed by the work of AFSC’s partners.

As capacity building officer I support learning within AFSC and with our partners, while also deepening my own understanding of conflict prevention and the Quaker approaches to its peaceful resolution. I am currently working with two of our partners to evaluate and measure the impact of two projects supported by AFSC in 2008-09.

The first project was run by the Friends Women Association (FWA) and focused on trauma healing and livelihoods. FWA provided 330 women from war affected communities with training on trauma and supported them to form small self-help groups with a capital grant to start a modest income-generation activity.

AVP’s project involved running a series of workshops in three different provinces with the aim of training individuals from grass-roots community structures in conflict transformation. The AVP approach was developed originally in the United States by Quaker groups working with prisoners in the 1970’s and has been adapted to the Burundian context with astounding success.

During the evaluation I travelled to Gatara commune to find out from community members what changes they had witnessed since the AVP trainings took place. Gatara lies close to a forest which gave cover to rebel groups during the war, leading to intense localised fighting and the subjection of the population to extremes of violence, poverty and insecurity. Since the end of the war, the commune has absorbed a large number of demobilized rebels, returning refugees and internally displaced people, leading to the population density rising to 700 per square kilometre, placing a huge burden on the land and on local resources. The prevalence of traumatisation and land disputes had led to widespread incidences of rape, killings and other forms of violence.

AVP trained mixed groups of former peace custodians (the young people equipped with guns by the government and set to defend their communities against the rebels while the government forces were away), former fighters, repatriated refugees and also local councillors, traditional leaders and members of local development committees. The results that emerged from the evaluation were an extraordinary testament to the power of personal transformation to heal and rebuild the community.

Stany Niyomgabo, the local administrator, welcomed us warmly and shared with us the changes he had witnessed in the community since the AVP workshops took place:

"There was a really positive impact in the community after the training and following the activities undertaken by the trained people. The cases of conflict went down across the board. There have been no more rapes in the commune since the training. Before the training, theft and banditry was rife. Now there are fewer thefts. The relations with the community are much better. We can say that thanks to this training, something changed in the mentality of the people."

He now urged AFSC to support more AVP workshops and to extend the reach of the project to every commune in the district.

Rievin Manirakiza is a 30-year old farmer and a former rebel combatant who walked for over an hour to share his personal testimony of AVP training with us:

"I was very traumatised by the period that I spent fighting in the bush [during the civil war]. I had seen many bad things. After the first [AVP] training, I felt a bit of mental relief but after the second training I really found that there was a big change in my life. By the third training, every bad thing that was in my mind was gone. Before, if you said something bad to me, I really felt that I wanted to react by killing you, but after the third training, I found a deep change in me and thought that others needed help. The AVP trainings came at the right time. It was a bad time, crazy time but now there is light."

As part of the evaluation of the FWA project, we visited two communities where the project had taken place; one in Rutegama, a rural commune about two hours’ drive from the capital and one in Kamenge; a particularly deprived suburb of Bujumbura. Women from both Rutegama and Kamenge have experienced the horrors of war at first hand. Both communes were the scenes of fierce fighting between the last armed rebel group and the government forces and almost all women we interviewed had experienced trauma. The causes of trauma were horrific in their diversity; sexual violence and rape, being forced to flee from home under fire, seeing family members being killed with machetes or hoes, being unable to bury the dead for days, suffering domestic violence, losing all earthly possessions through looting and most common of all, being widowed with several children and no means for making a living. The women selected for this project were among the most vulnerable in the community. Almost all were either widows or the unmarried heads of households. All spoke of experiencing trauma and of the terrible psychological and physical effects it had on them and on their families.

Symptoms of trauma ranged from insomnia, agoraphobia and depression to heart palpitations, chronic diarrhoea and gastritis. Not only were the effects of trauma making these women ill, it was also affecting their livelihoods and making them more vulnerable to poverty, abuse and infection with HIV. The FWA project aimed to provide support and counselling for these women to heal their trauma but also to enable them to start earning an income through income-generating schemes. With a small capital fund, the women could decide for themselves how best to work together to create a profit. Some groups decided to share goats, others to grow beans and maize and others to make quilts. By meeting regularly the women continue to counsel each other, offer mutual support and also pool their energies to supplement their individual incomes. In a country torn apart by war, the value of these support groups cannot be underestimated. Not only are the women reporting improved mental and physical health, they also have more money to spend on feeding their families and sending their children to school.

FWA takes the approach that peace and health are mutually dependent and that without healing trauma, reconciling communities, providing access to healthcare and securing livelihoods, the women of Burundi will never experience lasting peace.

Jaqueline, an elderly widow, spoke eloquently of the change that occurred in her life as a result of the FWA training:

"I had many problems during the crisis. I was traumatised. I lost a lot of people during the war; my children and neighbours died during the fighting. Thanks to the training we received during the seminar, now I feel well. I had anger; I remembered my children and I couldn’t sleep well. At every instant the faces of my children came back before me. I was always ill and I didn’t like it when other people came close to me. After learning the signs of someone who suffers from trauma I realised that I had all of them. After, I followed with great attention what they were teaching on how to heal someone who has trauma. The anger is over now and I talk with everyone. I thank our teachers who helped us to arrive at the peace I find today. Now with the family it is going well and I have peace in my heart."

As the first elections since the integration of the last rebel group draw closer, the spectre of a return to violence looms heavy on the horizon. A key learning that has emerged from the evaluation is the crucial role that partners such as AVP and FWA can play in enabling Burundians to steer their country towards lasting peace, not only during the electoral period but for generations to come. As tensions rise ahead of polling day, my only wish is that they will succeed.

Amohoro,
Cathrin Daniel
March 2010