REAVI-Baho Working to End Gender Based Violence in Burundi

By: Mireille Kayeye, MWF 2015 Fellow

My time at the Presidential Precinct was an eye opener and a life changing experience. When I attended the Mandela Washington Fellowship in 2015, I soon understood that I had a lot to offer to my community. This experience increased my leadership and skills while enlarging my network with young people working to address different challenges on the African continent. I learned more about my civic responsibility, critical design and thinking, innovative ways to pitch my project to funders, tools to improve social justice and my role in building accountable, fair and just societies. I have to admit that my dreams became urgent to achieve. Seeing the collective responsibility of each one added on my hopes and beliefs and made me want to double my efforts in helping girls and women in my country.

Burundi is a country with a history of violence, civil war and ongoing political instability. With more than 56% of the population under the age of 20, Burundian youth face many challenges where young women and girls are particularly vulnerable and experience sexual and gender based violence.

I am lucky to have grown up in a family that could afford to offer me the best gift ever: education. My father gave me his passion of journalism and my mother raised me with a great sense of empathy. I started putting these into action after high school with my passion for women’s rights. I started working as a journalist at a private radio station on a program aiming to raise awareness on sexual and reproductive health for youth with an emphasis on Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs) including HIV. At that time my mother, a social worker, had always worked with women who were impacted by civil war in the community by supporting them with counseling, education and various opportunities to help them improve their livelihoods.

My mother created REAVI-Baho and I joined her to support victims of sexual and gender based violence in our community. Together, we organized capacity building sessions to equip vulnerable girls, often the same age as me, with skills and self-esteem in one of the most underprivileged neighborhood in the capital city Bujumbura.

Inspired by my mother’s work, I want to see young women empowered and active in our society. Having seen how many of friends and family have suffered from rape, sexual abuse or domestic violence from their partner, I decided to stand against what is one of the main challenges that women face worldwide. The trauma, guilt and stigma experienced leave the survivor vulnerable and desperate. I believe that everyone should start to speak up about sexual violence to make a difference. It is men’s and women’s responsibility to make a difference and I am glad to be part of people who can’t stand the silence about this anymore.

Today we have launched an online campaign throughout our networks – from Burundi to Australia to the Presidential Precinct. Titled “Gift A Birth Certificate,” our campaign aims to offer birth certificates to children of mothers who have survived sexual and gender based violence. We are well over halfway to our fundraising goal of $8,000 with just 9 more days to go. We recently organized a fundraising event in Melbourne, Australia to continue working towards that goal. While many of these outreach strategies are new to me, I am continually inspired by my time at the Presidential Precinct and many of the friends and colleagues whom I met there during the Mandela Washington Fellowship.

In Burundi, appropriate medical, legal, social and psychological support for victims of sexual and gender based violence are simply not available to the majority of the population. In December 2016, we conducted a survey of 161 girls who requested assistance as survivors of SGBV. Our survey revealed that 48% of the children identified were not registered with a birth certificate, limiting their access to health, education and social services. Our birth registration campaign will allow kids to access health and education in Bujumbura, Burundi. This project will equip the community hub, “Centre Baho,” to provide counseling and guide survivors towards available services in Burundi.

I’ll leave you with a testimony from one of our recent beneficiaries:

*WARNING, graphic content

“REAVI-Baho helped me a lot. It made me a human being again. In 2001 I was caught by a group of policeman who brutalized me, raped me leaving my internal organs destroyed. I was continuously bleeding and I thought that I was dead. I suffered from fistula where I was continuously bleeding and suffering from incontinence which was so uncomfortable. Until the day I was found by a woman called Angeline who took me and put me in a bucket full of water to help me because there was nothing they could do for me and she did not have enough money to take me to the hospital. REAVI-Baho appeared to me as a miracle as I was waiting to die. They came to my rescue. With their help, I was taken to the Hospital Prince Regent but there was no improvement, then they moved me to another hospital Roi Khaled hospital. There, they decide that I needed to be transferred abroad in the Democratic Republic of Congo for better treatment as it was not available in the country. Thank God, I got better before traveling and all of this is because Brigitte (The president of REAVI-Baho) who stayed by my side and supported me at all steps. After they made a test and found that I was HIV positive. I have now been living with HIV for more than 12 years and I am still alive because of counselling, support given by REAVI-Baho. My children are grown up now and I thank my God for protecting me and REAVI-Baho for taking care of me. I gained a self-confidence and a positive attitude. Now, it’s me who report case and support girls and women in my community to REAVI-Baho.”

You can support our campaign HERE on our crowdfunding page. 100% of donations go directly to REAVI-Baho’s commitment to registering children, providing information and support for mothers and contributing to the setup of Centre Baho in Burundi.

Follow our progress on our Facebook page: (https://www.facebook.com/REAVIBAHOBURUNDI)