The people of Rwanda have come a long way since the 1994 genocide that took nearly a million lives. Yet the stories captured in our Fractured Lives photo exhibition [6] show that survivors, ex-combatants and ex-prisoners are still struggling to rebuild their lives.
Help make a difference - support our work today [7]
International Alert’s ground-breaking work brings together victims and perpetrators through a combination of trauma counselling, Dialogue Clubs and microfinance for small business opportunities. By bringing them together, the programme addresses the deep-rooted trauma that still haunts so many and helps the whole community to find forgiveness and move on.
Patricia told us her story. Despite having lived through great suffering during and long after the genocide, she managed to find hope and a peaceful future through our work:
'At the beginning of the war I rushed to my brother’s home and found they had all been hacked to death except their 4-month-old daughter who was lying next to her mother in a pool of blood. I picked her up and ran toward the border of Burundi. Along my escape I was attacked many times by local Hutus who were in a mob frenzy. They slashed my body with pangas, and broke my shoulder. I was in agony but held on to the baby. They finally stopped their attack and walked away because they thought I was dead… The years after the war ended were desperate. My house was stolen, and the cattle had been butchered – I had nothing.
'I joined the local Dialogue Club to find solace. International Alert helped me to realise there is no future for peace unless I can live in peace with my neighbours, even if they are Hutu and participated in my attack during the war.'
You can help people like Patricia. As of the end of 2012, our programme funding will come to an end. Without the help of people like you, our critical work will have to stop. And there are still so many more people, like Patricia, that we need to reach.
Please help us to support the people of Rwanda to recover from the horrors of the genocide. Your gift of £10 a month could help us fund:
- 315 Dialogue Club facilitators for a year
- 211 Dialogue Clubs in 10 districts
- training for 85 new trauma counsellors.
There are many more people in Rwanda that need our help to find hope and a future without fear of violence.
Thank you. Together we can make peace a reality.