solidarity

Beatrice NIZIGIYIMANA (pictured left) is president of one of the Shigikirana Village Savings and Loan groups that World Relief Burundi partners with in Burundi. Although her personal story is typically painful of returning refugees in Burundi, she seems unique in her openness to share her struggles. The joy that lights up her face when she speaks is distinctive and telling.

Like other returnees and Savings and Loan Group members in the southern province of Makamba, Beatrice’s current challenge in life is to rebuild her home and livelihood in a fragile, post-conflict situation. While Beatrice faces similar struggles to other returnees, her situation is unique and perhaps even more challenging than most.

Beatrice is 37 years old and a widow. Her husband died four years ago, and while being a widow in a post-conflict country is common, the redeeming quality and her strength would ordinarily be found in her children. However, Beatrice is barren. This fact undoubtedly gave approval to her late husband to take a second wife to bear his children. After her husband’s death, his family gave the second wife and her children the majority of his assets and possessions— leaving Beatrice with next to nothing. While circumstance and society stripped her of financial stability and social worth, she was cheated of one last thing, her health. Beatrice is HIV-Positive.

Amazingly, Beatrice seems to not be hindered or owned by these circumstantial strikes against her. She embodies confidence, joy, child-like faith, and love. These qualities no doubt testify to her election as the president of her Village Savings and Loan group almost one year ago. The association, appropriately named Rukundo (meaning “love” in Kirundi), meets once a week for group members to together save earnings and buy shares. Monthly, they disperse their accumulated savings as loans amongst one another and pay interest on previous loans. After one year, the group’s amassed capital is distributed to its members according to shares bought throughout the year. Beatrice and her group are currently, in June 2010, approaching their one-year mark!

Rukundo is one of 60 Shigikirana savings group in Burundi, 34 of which are in Beatrice’s southern province of Makamba. The groups averaging, 15 to 25 people apiece, meet weekly—Beatrice’s group meets in the small red-brick Anglican Church of Kayogoro. Kayogoro is a small village, offering little but a market place to support the surrounding communes. In this market, most savings group members own various stalls and businesses. With loans they receive, they buy and sell vegetables, cooking oil, charcoal, clothing, fish, and other goods. After repayment, they often profit approximately $7-$15 over a period of one to three months. This extra income is often reinvested in the group through share buying.

For Beatrice, the personal benefits of her involvement in the savings group are multi-faceted. With a loan from the group, she hired someone to help her begin a business. She now makes a traditional, sweet banana drink and transports it to various restaurants to sell. The helper lives with her and assists her with farming her small plot of land— an invaluable help in her weakened condition.

Every savings group has a social fund. From this fund, members can request assistance with various expenses like school fees, funerals, and other such life situations that are predetermined by each group. Beatrice’s group helped put a front door on her house, and they help finance ARV drugs for her. Additionally, the community that she found in her savings group proved itself to be more than just financially supportive. In many ways, it is life-giving. “The best thing is the group. In the group, we come from different backgrounds, but we all work together,” Beatrice says. Solidarity is a powerful thing!

Beatrice’s second name means “trust in God”. To Him, she attributes her joyful existence. She says she is a blessed woman. In her savings group, she has an accepting and supporting community. Despite the differing socio-economic levels within the group, they work together. Their collaboration is based on mutual trust and care for each other. Beatrice has her trust in Jesus Christ’ unconditional love for her. It is with the support of her community and her faith in God that

Story by Isaac Barnes and Trina Chase

Community in Kayanza

Regarded by some as one of the poorest provinces in Burundi, the northern province of Kayanza seems unaware of this imposed meager title. Steep hills carpeted in tea and coffee gleam under bright skies as children weave in and out of their mothers on the way to market. Kayanza town bursts at the seams with life on market days. Orange peels litter the ground this time of year, and people come from as far as Bujumbura to buy the potatoes from the Kayanza region. Unfortunately many times with increased commerce and social mobility comes the crippling effects of HIV/AIDS. On the main road from Bujumbura to Rwanda, Kayanza town now receives special attention from World Relief Burundi’s HIV/AIDS rep. Pastor Pierre Claver.

In the past year World Relief Burundi mobilized several volunteers in Kayanza town to 1). Help coordinate various HIV/AIDS trainings as money and materials were available, and 2). Organize and gather support groups of people living with HIV/AIDS. Two support groups only just started 6 months ago, but already the volunteers speak with excitement about the two communities. These groups care for each other when a member feels weaken by the disease, share food when some have none, and ensure that they take their medications properly.

The blessings of this harmonious sharing resonated clearly through the words of Minani Chantal as she communicated her story. HIV positive since 2002, she continues to live life with hopeful expectation. As a widow with two daughters Minani struggled to provide for her family as her health weakened, but she in due time was able to procure retro viral drugs from an NGO-helping her regain her much needed physical strength. With a small loan she started a basic business selling flour and other household items. Today, business is going well and her daughters both attend school. She recently benefited from a goat provided to her and others in her group from World Relief Burundi.


Minani counts herself blessed, as few attain so many forms of support. Today, She is part of a support group compromised of 12 men and 33 women. The greatest challenge they face exists in their weakening bodies. Even though some are able to find retro viral drugs without adequate nutrition, physical weakness persists and subsequently inhibits productivity and the ability to work. A dim reality that seemingly does not contain or define Minani as she confidently spoke of her hopes for the future. She desires to see her daughters finish secondary school. She also envisions the great awareness impact that her HIV/AIDS support group could be to their surrounding community. “To come out of fear and declare that you are [HIV] positive is the first step”, she says. Hopefully this painful first step can be made easier if there are more support groups and churches that will receive and support them.

“Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing to love one another, for he who loves his fellow man has fulfilled the law”-Romans 13:8

Pictured Top Left- Minani (center) and her two daughters
Pictured Bottom Right- Minani (center) and two other ladies from her HIV/AIDS support group

Thursday, March 26, representatives from USAID came to visit WRB’s CSP, of which USAID Washington is the primary donor. Guests included Andy Caras, from USAID Nairobi, and Jim Anderson, from USAID Burundi. The visitors were welcomed warmly in song by a community care group. CSP manager, Donatille Sinonida articulated the successes of the program— discussing the positive response and openness to volunteers of the community, the passion for the work of the promoters and volunteers, and the already occurring changes to practices (i.e. extended breast-feeding) within the communities. The guests then had the opportunity to observe a community care group, listening as the promoter facilitated a review with the women about the symptoms of diseases and when and how to get their children immunized.

Overall, the visit was a success and Jim Anderson left, saying,

“World Relief, you do good work!”

Pictured: USAID Burundi Rep, Jim Anderson, welcoming CSP volunteers to their office in Bujumbura.

Pictured: Health Promoter on motorcycle.

Restoring Shalom

Shalom!

While a common Kirundi greeting, “Amahoro!” the equivalent Hebrew word shalom is also a common greeting around the World Relief Burundi office these days!

A greeting. State of being. Uniting force. The world shalom encompassed all for us during our annual staff retreat this past February. The tranquility and scenic beauty of the Giheta Catholic Conference Center provided the perfect setting for our times of personal refection and community building. The Church Mobilization team carried most of the responsibilities for the structure and content of the 4-day retreat. They balanced our times of worship and teaching sessions with meaningful times of community shared around meals and free time. This provided us with moments to reflect on the challenging words we received and effectually take the first steps towards restoring broken Shalom.

So, how is your shalom these days? As we at World Relief Burundi are learning, it’s more than just a greeting. If we are going to be holistic in helping the poor and most vulnerable; it must emanate from our own personal lives. We cannot be agents of transformation in this world if we do not have shalom with it's people and Creator. How are we to be the voice of reconciliation when we do not reconcile our own relationships?

Pray with us as we seek shalom in Burundi!

Goats!

“Yes, I am a Christian, but when the war came I lost my faith. But now, I have come back to my faith. I know that God exists. I am so blessed!”

-Andre Ntahondenga

A simple faith. Simply put. A faith that has been tested by war, hunger, and loss. A faith that was lost and now is found— a man firmly saying that he is indeed blessed. Andre’s story is no different than many of the life stories that gathered on a green-carpeted hill in Vurgizo this past week in the southern Burundian province of Makamba. Returnees and IDP’s assembled there, restarting their lives in this remote area.


Andre is a native of Vurgizo. He and his family fled to neighboring Tanzania to escape the persisting civil war that engulfed Makamba province. Ten years he lived away from his birthplace and home. Finally, in June of 2008, he returned home to Vurgizo. He now lives with his grown children who take care of him. His land was returned to him, although he says it does not yield enough to feed his entire family. Andre was identified by members of his community to receive a goat from World Relief because his community saw the disadvantages he faces on a daily basis. A goat is beneficial in many ways- to sell for profit, to eat as meat, or to use the goat’s droppings for fertilizer for cropland that has been stripped of its’ topsoil by the endemic erosion that plagues most of the Burundian hillsides.


There was hope in the air. It was heard in the laughter of men and women as they scrawled their names to receive their goats. It was seen in the shy smiles of each beneficiary as they pulled their resisting goat to green pastures. It was expressed in words of thansdfks to World Relief staff and to the One from whom all things come. There is hope— that as we reach out to each other in love, our relationship with the King is likewise redeemed.

Creating "Home".

“We estimate more than 470,000 Burundians have returned home from Tanzania and other asylum countries over the past six years.”-Ron Redmond, UNHCR


Of these 470,000 returnees about 63,000 returned to Burundi just this past year in 2008. Most of these have returned to the southern province of Makamba, more specifically to Nyanza Lac. The center of World Relief Burundi’s refugee work.

Nyanza-lac is a lakeside community. The people there depend on the lake, as well as their sparse crops, for sustenance. Each night, one can see hundreds of rough, wooden dug-out boats slowly paddle to the depths of the lake’s center. At dark, the lake turns into the appearance of a flat city… as each boat lights a lantern to draw the fish into their nets.

Now, the little town of Nyanza-Lac and its’ surrounding communes are packed with people. Since December 2005, Makamba province has received over 28% of the countries returnees, with Nyanza-Lac commune receiving nearly 60% of those.. Not only is this area packed with people, which obviously creates land, food availability, and community issues. Additionally, this area was hit hard during the war and the need for shelter and food security in this region has only continued to grow with the return of refugees. Thus, it is here that World Relief Burundi has focused its rehabilitation and livelihood efforts since 2004.

As of March 2008, World Relief Burundi helped rehabilitate nearly 3,000 homes in Mukungu, Kabonga, and Muyange zones of Nyanza-Lac and Vugizo Communes! The construction of these homes and implementation of other food programs has been possible through various grants and partnerships with organizations such as Tearfund Belgium, Habitat for Humanity, and the US Bureau of Population, Migration, and Repatriation. While World Relief Burundi provides most of the construction materials, the actual building of the individual houses is the responsibility of the recipient and often becomes a community event. Community leaders are included in the process of identifying the vulnerable in their communities, and are also asked to help coordinate able-bodied community members to help these vulnerable peoples rebuild their homes.

World Relief Burundi is pleased to announce that Tearfund Belgium agreed to another year of partnership with us, which will provide funding for an additional 700 homes to be built in Nyanza-Lac. In addition to shelter for returning refugees, the valuable input of seeds and tools will be distributed to nearly 3,000 families! To those in the community who are able, these items will be given out through various “food for work” programs. Projects such as hillside terracing and ditch digging provide not only great means to exchange work for needed food, but they are helping to prevent the rampant erosion of precious topsoil from the hills that blanket most of Burundi.

Much is happening in Nyanza-Lac! We continually praise God for all He is doing. He is the Great Provider.

World AIDS Day in Bubanza, Burundi

The small, land-locked country of Burundi in central Africa falls 16th among the countries identified as most vulnerable to the threat of HIV/AIDS. Burundi has a prevalence rate of 9.5% to 10.5% in urban and semi-urban zones and is lower (2.5%) in rural zones according to a 2004 UNAIDS Report. It is estimated that there are approximately 250,000 people living with HIV/Aids in Burundi—220,000 adults (ages 15-49 years) and of those, 130,000 are identified as women.

The last 13 years of social, ethnic and political upheavals have put many families at risk and exposed them to situations of vulnerability and infection by the HIV virus. With an issue like HIV/AIDS greatly impacting the population of Burundi, the 2008 celebration of World AIDS Day was greatly anticipated and planned for by World Relief Burundi Staff and local partner, Dutabarane. Many choirs from various churches competitively auditioned a week prior to the event for the privilege of being one of the four choirs to sing at this celebration on December 1.

For our World Relief Burundi and Dutabarane staff, the day planned was full— a ceremony at the football field in Bubanza, the dedication of the new Dutabarane office in Bubanza, and HIV testing to be carried out throughout the day at various locations.

(Burundian drummers drew the crowds for the day's events)

The procession from Bujumbura was headed by a vibrant drumming troupe. Their rhythms and chants drew crowds at each stop along the way to Bubanza. At these stops the choir traveling with us would pile out of the bus singing a song that they had written about HIV/AIDS followed by a short message from a Dutabarane pastor.

(One of the 4 choirs)

The main events of the day took place in Bubanza proper with over 1,200 people participating and 13 churches. In the morning HIV testing was carried out at the local health center. By midmorning they had stopped taking people due to the lack of personnel and the sheer number of people that came for testing. 716 people were tested. It is encouraging and exciting to see so many people come for voluntary testing though a heartbreaking reality now faces those who will find out that they are HIV positive. Some 744 people received post-testing counseling.

(Choirs shared honest sentiments about HIV/AIDS)

The ceremony itself at the Bubanza football pitch was a flurry and whirl of Burundian drumbeats, harmonic choral voices, poetic story tellings, wordy speeches, and poignant statistics of the HIV/AIDS crisis in Burundi. As grave as the statistics are, this was not a memorial of resignation or defeat, instead it felt more like a rally to engage in a war that will require more than just awareness to win. The choirs were almost graphic in their lyrics and gestures as they sang about everything from the transmission of HIV to ways to prevent its transmission.

Hope was embodied best in the person and testimony presented by a young woman who is HIV-positive. She bravely shared her testimony of her life with HIV/AIDS in front of the whole crowd assembled. She found out that she was HIV positive while also pregnant and through being tested and understanding the disease she was able to keep her baby HIV negative. She spoke of acceptance and the reconciliation that she was able to have with her family. The fear of familial rejection keeps many HIV positive people suffering in silence, keeping them from health centers for fear that their families will find out.

While still much remains to be done to eradicate HIV/AIDS from Burundi, December 1st was a day of expressed hope. Hope that a people can become self aware of their danger, and seek to make informed choices that are in the end, life giving. Hope that there is a good God who is a great comforter in trying times. Hope that we can learn from our mistakes and receive grace and forgiveness and live a restored life in Jesus Christ.

(This banner asked the government for free retro-viral drugs for those living with HIV)