Wednesday 24 feb – Field visit to Ruhengeri

My first field visit went to Ruhengeri (now changed to Musanze) in the North West, inside the Volcano National Park. It’s a very beautiful area with the tall volcanoes sticking up through the mist. This is where you go to see the mountain gorillas that Rwanda is so famous for. Sadly this is also the part of the country where the conflict between Hutus and Tutsis is the worst. The area is heavily Hutu dominated since most of the Tutsis living there was chased away after independence and settled in exile in Uganda. This part of the country is also very close to the Kivu province in DRC (Congo) and the city of Goma, where most of the Hutu extremists fled after the genocide. It is estimated that 60 000 Hutus still live there as refugees or as part of the guerrilla movement (FDLR). Due to the short distance the guerrilla has made intrusions into Rwanda, orchestrating terrorist attacks and thereby destabilising the region and keeping the conflict between the two groups alive. It was not until 2003 that the situation started to stabilise.

The project I went there to see is focusing on reconciliation. It is the Norwegian Church Aid (NCA) that arranges the project through its partner organisations and a strategy called clustering. Sida is the main funder of this project. Clustering means that different organisations implement several different projects in one small geographic area that creates a more holistic focus. The different activities that are included in the projects complement each other and therefore have a greater effect than if they would be conducted in isolation. All of the activities in this cluster are directed towards reconciliation. One example of activities we looked at is practical training of released prisoners so they can be reintegrated into society and find a job. Another was the construction of a reconciliation village where genocide survivors, perpetrators and ex-combatants from DRC live together and have to work together. This is called practical reconciliation. One example is that they solve the problem of finding clean drinking water by collecting rain water from the roofs of the houses that is then collected in a tank. The water in the tank is shared by two houses which force them to get along and collaborate. A third example is a trauma centre that is being built where all different groups in the village can go to get counselling to heal their scars from the genocide. Something that is very frustrating when you work with reconciliation is that it is a very slow process that is difficult to measure.

Unfortunately I forgot to bring my camera but hopefully I will get some pictures from other participants that I can post later.