Marguerite (Maggy) Barankitse is an internationally acclaimed humanitarian activist from Burundi devoted to improving the welfare of children and challenging ethnic discrimination. After rescuing 25 children from a massacre she was forced to witness during the tragic conflicts between Hutu and Tutsi in Burundi in 1993, Marguerite Barankitse decided to set up Maison Shalom, a shelter to aid children in need and to provide access to healthcare, education, and culture to over 20,000 orphan children.
In 22 years, Maison Shalom had grown into a large complex of schools, hospitals, and a network of care across Burundi with the purpose of improving the lives of Burundi's children through integrated and sustainable development that aimed to foster a lasting peace in Burundi. However, in 2015 "Maggy" was forced to flee her country and everything she had work for, after Burundi plunged into a political crisis. Far from surrendering, "Maggy" decided to dedicate all her energy to help more than 90.000 Burundian refugees in Rwanda. In 2016, she opened the Community Center Oasis of Peace in order to school children, offer psychosocial support to victims of torture and rape, and to implement activities of sustainable development in areas such as health, education, vocational training, culture and income-generation. As she usually says, her vision is to instill dignity in the refugees and to allow them to keep their dreams alive: "Evil never has the last word - love always wins out".
She is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Aurora Prize for Awakening Humanity (2016), the Opus Prize (2008), the Prize for Conflict Prevention (2011), UNESCO (2008), the Nansen Refugee Award (2005), the Four Freedoms Award from the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute (2004), the Voices of Courage Award of the Women's Commission for Women and Refugee Children (2004), the World Children's prize (2003), the Juan Maria Bandres Prize for Asylum Rights (1998), and the French Government's Human Rights Prize (1998).
Video Marguerite Barankitse
Biography
Marguerite - "Maggy" - Barankitse was born in 1957 in Ruyigi, East-Burundi, one of the poorest regions of the country. She was a teacher at a local secondary school, but was fired because of her protests against discrimination between Hutus and Tutsis in the field of education. She then went to work as a secretary for the Catholic Bishop in Ruyigi. Despite mounting tensions, Maggy put her dream of ethnic harmony into practice by adopting seven children: four Hutus and three Tutsis. As violence escalated between Hutus and Tutsis following the assassination of the first democratically elected president of Burundi, a group of armed Tutsis descended on Ruyigi on October 23rd 1993 to kill the Hutu families who were hiding in the Bishop's manor. Maggy managed to hide many of the children, but was caught by the fighters. They beat and humiliated her and forced her to watch the killing of 72 Hutus, but she refused to divulge where the children were hidden. Ultimately, she was only spared because she is a Tutsi. After this ordeal, she gathered her adopted children and the surviving orphans and hid them in a nearby school. As more and more children sought shelter with her, she decided to create a small non-governmental organisation: Maison Shalom, the house of peace. Maggy's house is open to children of all ethnic origins: Tutsi, Hutu and Twa. She calls them "my Hutsitwa children", and they call her "Oma" (or grandmother in german). In the following years, Maison Shalom in Ruyigi was one of the few places in Burundi where Hutus and Tutsis lived together.
Since the terrible events of 1993, over 10,000 children and youth have benefited from Maison Shalom. Before the current crisis in Burundi, the organisation employed more than 270 people, including nurses, psychologists, and educators who implement special projects for the children. Maggy set up small income-generating initiatives run by the youth themselves, such as a guesthouse, a cinema, a car workshop, etc. When they become independent, the young people receive a small house and a plot of land. In 2004 an estimated 20,000 children had benefited from her help, either directly or indirectly. By 2015 over 300 houses for children and youth aged between 4 and 20 had been built. The NGO also helps internally displaced persons and returning Burundian refugees to reintegrate in Ruyigi and to trace their missing relatives. Maggy Barankitse is on the frontline in the battle against AIDS, setting up counselling projects to promote AIDS prevention. She and her staff care for over 100 HIV infected children who have been abandoned or orphaned. She started an initiative to help the youth who were in prison. Some children were born in prison and she worked to find them a better life outside the prison - through education especially and a home outside. Her team continued to promote agriculture and established a microfinance to enable the mothers and fathers to develop small businesses.
Alas in April 2015, when Maggy spoke out against the third term of Pierre Nkurunziza, she was obliged to hide for a month in an embassy in Bujumbura. Finally she had to flee, for the government had her name on a list to be eliminated. Having joined the youth demonstrations denouncing the president who sought a third term, Maggy found herself a refugee.
But the refugee status did not stop her devotion to alleviate suffering. She has now opened a branch of Maison Shalom in Rwanda where she sought refuge. Her focus today is to obtain education for children and those secondary and university students who are in refugee camps. She has put 126 children in preschool, 160 in secondary school and obtained 353 scholarships for University refugee students to join Rwandan universities, and 10 scholarships for the best students to study in universities abroad.
Maps Marguerite Barankitse
Maison Shalom
In the autumn of 1993, after the assassination of Melchior Ndadaye, first democratically elected president of Burundu (Hutu), the Burundian civil war began with massacres taking place throughout the country. In the province of Ruyigi, disaster struck on 24 October. To exact vengeance for the killing of members of their ethnic group, the Tutsi hunted the town's Hutus, who were hiding in the diocese buildings. Maggy (Tutsi) was also there and she tried to reason with the group of Tutsi to convince them not to use violence. However, her efforts were in vain and they decided to tie her to a chair and forced her to watch the killing of 72 of her friends in front of her. A few hours after the massacre, the children of the victims started to come out of their hiding places. That day, Maggy realized that her mission would be to fight the violence ravaging her country by giving those children, and the 20,000 who would follow, an alternative to hate.. Amid the prevailing disaster, the news had spread rapidly about the "crazy woman of Ruyigi" who dared to take in all the orphans who came to her, never refusing anyone. Twa, Hutu, Tutsi: Maggy made no distinction.
She initially gathered 25 children who were there as well so she could help them. With the help of European and Burundian friends she organized a network that provided care for a growing number of children. In May 1994 the Roman Catholic Bishop of Ruyigi, Bishop Joseph Nduhirubusa agreed to transform a former school into a children's shelter called 'Maison Shalom'. So named by the children, in memory of a song heard on the radio during these terrible days, and because the word "peace", in Kirundi had himself been instrumentalized and defiled by the slaughterers on both sides.
Maison Shalom changed not only the lives of orphans, but also the entire region that could access to these services. While services were available to the entire community, the focus was on children, some of whom were child soldiers, orphans, mutilated child and minors in prison. Her activities expanded to other cities such as Butezi and Gizuru where she opened other children's shelters.
Over the years, what was just a shelter seeking to protect orphans from both sides of the Burundian ethnic divide after the civil war, grown into an entire village, (including a bank, a crèche, an hotel, a shop, resource centre for learning sewing and computing, a mechanic training, a swimming pool, the REMA Hospital, and even a cinema).
In 2004 an estimated 20,000 children had benefited from her help, either directly or indirectly.
But in 2015, everything falls apart. The Burundian government suppresses protests against a third term for President Nkurunziza. Thousands of Burundians are fleeing to Rwanda, Uganda, Tanzania or the DRC. Maggy protests, cares for the wounded young, and feeds those who are in prison. But in June 2015, Marguerite Barankitse is herself forced to flee. In Burundi, his head is priced.
Maison Shalom Rwanda and the Community Center Oasis of Peace
Far from surrendering, Maggy refused to spend comfortably her days in Europe and instead decided to dedicate all her energy to help more than 90.000 Burundian refugees in Rwanda.
In May 2017, Maggy opened the Community Center Oasis of Peace in order to school children, offer psychosocial support to victims of torture and rape, and to implement activities of sustainable development in areas such as health, education, vocational training, culture, and income-generation. The Centre already offers a variety of courses including English language learning, culinary arts, tailoring, embroidery and painting. It also has a restaurant and a cyber equipped with computers with internet connection for research and basic computer training. Approximately 200 people come every day to the Centre and benefit from the various services offered by Maison Shalom.
Maison Shalom seeks to help refugees and especially young people in exile to live in dignity, to use the exile for empowerment and to forgiveness for those who forced them to flee their homeland.
Mahama Refugee Camp and Mahama Elite Center
Since 2015, more than 430.000 Burundians have been forced to flee and to seek refuge in neighbouring countries such as Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda. Among them, more than 90.000 are in Rwanda, of which 58.000 live in Mahama refugee camp. This camp is considered to be a model case of refugee management in the East African Region.
To support the refugees living in the camp, Maison Shalom opened the Mahama Elite Center last 22th of June 2018.
This training center at Mahama refugee camp will offer vocational training and employment to Burundian refugees in the camp. This project will enable young people not only to improve their living conditions but also to strengthen their entrepreneurship skills.
Awards and Honours
The scope of her action, as well as the fact that she protects all children without consideration of their origin, Tutsi or Hutu, brought her praise from all corners of the world:
- 1998 : Prix des Droits de l'homme de la République française - Liberté - Égalité - Fraternité (Human Rights award of the French government)
- 2000 : North-South Prize from the Council of Europe
- 2003 : World's Children's Prize for the Rights of the Child
- 2004 : Voices of Courage Award of the Women's Commission for Women and Refugee Children
- 2004 : Nansen Refugee Award
- 2008 : Opus Prize
- 2008 : UNESCO Prize
- In June 2009, Grand Duchess Maria Teresa of Luxembourg, UNICEF Eminent Advocate for Children, visited Maison Shalom during a tour of Burundi. In October 2011, the Grand Duchess welcomed Marguerite Barankitse to Luxembourg to open a photographic exhibition in support of Maison Shalom.
- On November 24, 2011, Marguerite Barankitse received the Prize for Conflict Prevention from the hands of Kofi Annan. The Conflict Prevention Prize is awarded every year by the Fondation Chirac, launched in 2008 by former French president Jacques Chirac.
- On April 24, 2016 Marguerite was awarded the $1.1m Aurora Prize for Awakening Humanity, an award given to humanitarians in memory of the Armenian Genocide.
Honorary Degrees
- 2017 Degree of Doctor of Laws (honoris causa) of Rhodes University
- 2013 Emory University, Honorary Doctor's Degree, Atlanta, Georgia, USA
- 2013 Duke University, Honorary Doctor's Degree, Durham, North Carolina, USA, alongside Melinda Gates
- 2012 Université de Lille, France, Honorary Doctor's Degree
- 2011 Doctor Honoris Causa, Université Catholique de Lille, France
- 2004 Doctor Honoris Causa from the University of Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium
Books about Maggy and Maison Shalom
- La haine n'aura pas le dernier mot, in French by Christel Martin, Editions Michel Albin 2005
- Madre di diecimila figli, Edition Piemme Bestseller 2010, translated into Italian from the French, La haine n'aura pas le dernier mot by Christel Martin
- Hummingbird, Why Am I Here? Maggy's Children, by Judith Debetencourt Hoskins, in English,2012
References
External links
- Official Web-site of Maison Shalom (in French)
- Video on Marguerite Barankitse's action, Fondation Chirac's website
- Official Youtube Channel of Maison Shalom
- Official Facebook Page of Maison Shalom
- Official Twitter Page of Maison Shalom
- Official Instagram Page of Maison Shalom
Source of article : Wikipedia
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