An innovative project in Rwanda is helping to heal old wounds by bringing genocide survivors, ex-combatants, ex-prisoners and the youth together through dialogue.
Funded by Misereor and USAID and implemented through local partners, this International Alert led project has created small discussion groups called "dialogue clubs" in communities and schools across Rwanda (pictured right). The clubs encourage everyone to share their experiences of the genocide in a way that improves mutual understanding.
“For there to be genuine reconciliation and a better healing process, it is crucial that people are given space to express their anger, guilt, fear and shame," says Gloriosa Bazigaga, Alert's country manager in Rwanda. "It is through dialogue and communication that one party can understand the feelings and experiences of the other. The dialogue clubs have created that space for many Rwandans.”
In April this year it will be exactly 19 years since the Rwandan genocide, which claimed the lives of an estimated 800,000 people - most of them Tutsi. Over the years, the Rwandan government has through its National Unity and Reconciliation Commission established a variety of programmes aimed at promoting unity and reconciliation in the country, but cases of trauma and mistrust still exist. And with ex-prisoners and ex-combatants returning to communities - having served their sentences or gone through disarmament programmes - coexistence with survivors has become inevitable, often exacerbating trauma and stress levels.
According to one dialogue club facilitator, while there were initially tensions between different people, the situation has improved with time. “At first, some people would scream and shout at those they perceived as enemies or traitors and sessions would turn into angry confrontations," she said. "But following a series of counselling sessions, people have become more accepting and understanding, which is a first step to recovering from trauma.”
During the genocide, Marie Kirezi witnessed her own brothers attack and kill her husband and six children. Having endured years of trauma, Marie joined one of the dialogue clubs and was able to access counselling. “My first day was rewarding,” she says. "It wasn’t until after my first session that I realised I was suffering from trauma. I feel happier now because the club members are like my family. I feel reintegrated and loved again. Importantly, my brothers have since asked for forgiveness and we are now together as a family.”
Since October 2010 an estimated 3,000 people have participated in the dialogue clubs. The programme has trained 64 facilitators who are overseeing clubs in 45 communities and 17 schools in eight areas across Rwanda, and more than 60 facilitators have graduated as trauma counsellors through clinically supervised workshops.
Last year award-winning photojournalist Carol Allen Storey visited the project in Rwanda to look at the long-term effects of the genocide on the people of the country. Watch her Fractured Lives photographic essay here.
You can find out more about our work in Rwanda, and the wider reintegration and reconciliation efforts in the country, by reading our report, Healing fractured lives: Reconciliation and reintegration in Rwanda.
Photo by Carol Allen Storey for International Alert
