Burundi: healing memories and restoring peace

Désiré Majambere explains why all Burundians carry wounds in their hearts and how the peacebuilding work of Tearfund and its partners is working out.

Désiré Majambere is Christian international development agency Tearfund’s Country Director for Burundi. He writes: 

All Burundians carry wounds in their hearts. Since independence in 1962, our small country, on the edge of Africa’s Lake Tanganyika, has seen decades of conflict which has inevitably left scars.

When she was a teenager, Jacqueline was stabbed and witnessed her father’s violent death. With thousands of others, she fled to neighbouring Rwanda. On returning home, she found her husband had deserted her and her land had been given away, leaving her struggling to feed her children.

This kind of trauma – common in Burundi – can easily lead to hardened hearts and unforgiveness, but international development charity Tearfund and its partners are accompanying people like Jacqueline through a journey of healing. By training church and community leaders, setting up networks of peace champions, and establishing community groups which help people thrive, we are working to heal memories and restore peace.

Peace champion Evariste explains how he reduces tension in his community: ‘If I reach someone’s home and a man is quarrelling with his wife, or the neighbour, I show him clearly how to live together and to respect each other.’ For me, Evariste is a modern ‘prince of peace’ and he explains his motivation: ‘When residents have trusted you, saying we have chosen you to solve these problems for us, it’s all the same as if God has trusted you.’

Jacqueline had one-to-one counselling with Evariste, along with group counselling, and also joined a co-operative where members tackle problems together. ‘I like the way we sit down and share, it makes me happy,’ she says, adding the group helped her save for a goat and a bicycle, which one of her children uses to go to school or to collect water.

Evariste says: ‘Those groups, what they will put first is love. To love each other. Then the second is saving and lending to each other, to do modern agriculture and modern farming.’ 

Tearfund’s peacebuilding work in Burundi goes back many years. Almost a decade ago, when the National Truth and Reconciliation Commission was set up, recognisable bodies of those killed during the conflicts were exhumed; people were unprepared and some were collapsing with grief and shock. We realised the church was well placed to help, so Tearfund trained church leaders on trauma and healing so they could care for the individuals affected.

To mitigate tensions in the run up to the 2020 elections, we trained Christian and Muslim leaders, who understand their local context, to help those in the public eye – decision makers, politicians and authorities – speak in a language of peace; to reduce rather than encourage division.

The outcome was a peaceful election without bloodshed which, instead of encouraging more people to flee, gave refugees the confidence to return home to Burundi. Tearfund’s initiative in training faith leaders to act as peacebuilders was a first for Burundi. Many leaders have asked me to continue organising ways to talk through issues, to find common understanding and strategies to overcome problems.

Helping faith leaders work together to build peace has resulted from long-term relationship building, but I long to see a fully reconciled Burundi: everyone working together without suspicion, people showing resilience, living without poverty and planning sustainable development. It’s the prospect of further success like this which drives my work through Tearfund.

Written by Désiré Majambere, Christian international development agency Tearfund’s Country Director for Burundi.
For more details about Tearfund’s Christmas Appeal to help our local partners as they work to restore peace to the hearts of people like Jacqueline, please visit www.tearfund.org/ChristmasBurundi

Photos: Evariste, the peace champion (left) with Jacqueline ©️ Paul Mbonankira/Tearfund. Tearfund logo. Right, Désiré Majambere.