GITARAMA, Rwanda (dpa) – The long-term effects of Rwanda’s genocide can still be seen in Gitarama, where children head an unprecedented number of households.
According to UNICEF, 85,000 Rwandan teenagers are solely responsible for their younger siblings. The phenomenon is mainly the result of the country’s civil war and the 1994 genocide, which saw Hutu extremists slay an estimated 800,000 people, mostly from the Tutsi ethnic group.But it is also driven by the growing number of deaths from the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome AIDS.In most African cultures, orphaned children are taken in by surviving aunts, uncles, or grandparents. But the social upheaval of the genocide fractured this tradition in Rwanda.“Most of the heads of households have had to drop out of school,” said Victor Addom, country director of the aid agency Food for the Hungry International (FHI). “It’s a huge problem the country is facing. The international community doesn’t seem to know a lot about it, and I really don’t know why.”Many international donors and aid agencies rushed to assist orphaned children with their emergency needs in the wake of the genocide. Fewer stayed on to work at the long-term problems these orphans would face in their everyday lives.FHI is one agency that did stay on. It started a programme for child-led households in and around Gitarama by giving the youngsters hoes, seeds, and school supplies. The programme has evolved into longer-term training in such skills as carpentry or hairdressing.Now it brings the young “parents” together in mutual support groups, and matches them with respected adult mentors called “nkundabana”, literally meaning “one who loves children.”Pierre Nsabimana is a nkundabana for children in Mata, a rural area a few miles outside Gitarama town. Asked how he got involved in the programme, the father of eight replies: “It was not my idea, it came from the children. They chose me. I used to visit some of them and help them. It’s my nature, I like children.”His fellow nkundabana, Nicandre Munyurangabo, says that of the children in his group, one family particularly touches him: six Tutsi siblings, the oldest of whom is mute, leaving the second-eldest to be the one in charge.Notably, both men are Hutu. According to Munyurangabo, through group work and discussion of issues, Tutsi and Hutu children are becoming friends where before they were reluctant to talk to each other. “It should help our country to reconcile,” he says.Sylvine Uwanyirigira was left head of her household at 18 after her mother and father died in short succession. She is responsible for raising her four younger brothers and two younger sisters.“When my parents were still living, I was like other children. I didn’t worry about having responsibility,” said Uwanyirigira.She says she didn’t feel prepared for the task of parenting, but added: “I accepted it because of the situation.” The support group gives her a chance to talk to other young people whose situation is similar, and she says that does help, especially when her siblings are causing her grief.
