#Kwibuka30 - REMEMBER, UNITE, RENEW
This week is the 30th anniversary of the genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda , when more than a million people were killed and millions more fled their homes in the 100 days of violence that followed the shooting down of the Rwandan president’s plane on 6 April 1994.
Ripple Effect’s work in Rwanda aims to improve life for everyone poor and disadvantaged in rural areas, so that divisiveness may never bear such terrrible fruit again. Our Widows Empowerment project in partnership with Bothar, which was completed last year, worked directly with 399 genocide survivors in the Rwamagana district in eastern Rwanda.
Like most Rwandan organisations, Ripple Effect staff will be taking part in commemorative events in the next 100 days, visiting survivor communities, and sharing stories of strength, resilience, and hope.
This is one of them.
My name is Emerance Bakankusi and I survived the genocide in Rwanda against the Tutsi 30 years ago. This anniversary time of year is always very difficult for me.
I was born in a Tutsi family of 9 children. We lived with our parents in Nyamata in Bugesera district in the Eastern province of Rwanda.
I was 10 years old when the genocide started in April 1994. It was a dangerous and frightening time. Six of my siblings and both my parents were killed.
My 19-year-old brother and I managed to escape: we were together when one of our neighbours found us and decided to help us. He and his wife would hide us in their house every night, and every morning before sunrise he would accompany us to the bushes or the forest where we would find other people that were being hidden from the killers.
After the genocide, I did not have the hope to continue living. My only surviving sister passed on five years later with her child, due to the severe effects of the abuse she experienced then.
I was an orphan, everything was at a standstill, and I never imagined I would recover from the experience. I didn’t see the need to go back to school because there was no certain future.
After a while I found a family that I lived with, and started building a hope of a better tomorrow. With some difficulty I completed my education.
I now have a Master's degree in Environment Management, and I have started a family of my own. I am grateful to God for my two sons.
Ripple Effect Rwanda Programme Funding Manager Donna Akariza Ajambo writes:
Emerance joined Ripple Effect Rwanda (then Send a Cow) in 2017 and is one of two Project Facilitators for our Empowering Coffee Communities Project. She lives and works in Nyaruguru district, training smallholder farmers in farm systems, gender inclusion, and income generation.
She is remarkable for being our only female Rwandan field staff member who is qualified to drive a motorbike, which she uses to travel around the 600 families she supports.
Many of our Rwanda Ripple Effect staff have personal experience of the genocide in one way or another that they will be thinking of when we come together to commemorate the genocide each year. Emerance and I talked together about her experiences this time last year, and I am very grateful that she was willing to share her story more widely now. She is a truly inspiring example of resilience and determination despite her terrible life experiences.
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