Human
Rights Advocacy
"Angel
of Burundi" to receive Nansen Refugee Award
For
the last 12 years, she's opened her house and heart to
more than 10,000 children affected by Burundi's civil
war and other conflicts in the region, providing them
with safety, love and the chance of a better future.
For
her tireless efforts, Marguerite Barankitse, a Burundian
humanitarian worker and founder of non-governmental organisation
Maison Shalom ("House of Peace"), has been named
the winner of this year's Nansen Refugee Award. The award
is given annually to individuals or organisations that
have distinguished themselves in work on behalf of refugees.
Barankitse,
who prefers to be called "Maggie" but has also
been hailed as "the Angel of Burundi", started
Maison Shalom during the Burundian civil war in 1993.
At the time, she was teaching at a local school in her
hometown of Ruyigi in the country's east. She recalls
the horror of seeing 72 people killed before her eyes
that fateful October.
"After
the massacre, we were trying to flee, but we also had
to bury the dead," said Maggie, walking through a
cemetery in Ruyigi. "There were many of them, and
we were scared. We looked for a place that would not be
easy to find. This was still the bush then. We dug with
wheelbarrows, as fast as we could and the 72 people who
were killed that day are here, in this mass grave."
She
managed to save 25 children, taking them under her wing
in the chaos of the conflict. "At the beginning there
were 25 children whose parents had been killed, then after
one year there were 100, then 500 and now it's more than
10,000. So I began to look for land, and I thought, why
don't I use my parents' land?"
Thus
Maison Shalom was born, providing a home where orphans
and separated children can grow up in "families"
- in security, education and love. Today, Maggie and her
team run four "children's villages" around the
country, as well as a centre for orphans and other vulnerable
children in the capital, Bujumbura.
The
children learn about health education, how to manage a
household and tend to livestock, and how to engage in
income-generating projects and apprenticeships. They run
a cinema, a public swimming pool, a restaurant, a hairdressing
salon and a guesthouse in Ruyigi.
Other
projects range from health care provision to HIV/AIDS
prevention and family reunification. In addition to orphans
and separated children, Maggie has also helped former
child soldiers, children with HIV, and young refugees
from Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Maison
Shalom has also reached out to Burundian refugees returning
from years of exile in Tanzania, helping the women and
children to rebuild their lives. In the communes of Kabuyenge,
Cendajuru and Giharo, the NGO has worked with returnees
and displaced people to establish small income-generating
projects like sewing, carpentry and soap making. It has
also set up UNHCR-supported carpentry projects for returnees
in Gisuru commune, a major area of return.
Maggie's
work has been widely recognised. In 2004, she received
the Four Freedoms Award from the Franklin and Eleanor
Roosevelt Institute, and the Voices of Courage Award from
the US-based Women's Commission for Refugee Women and
Children. Her other awards include the World's Children's
Prize (2003), the Spanish Committee for Aid to Refugees'
Juan Maria Bandrés Prize for Asylum Rights Advocates
(2003), the North-South Prize (2000), as well as the French
government's Human Rights Prize (1998). In 2004, she was
awarded an honorary doctorate by the Catholic University
of Louvain in Belgium.
The
Nansen Refugee Award, created in 1954, is named after
Fridtjof Nansen, the celebrated Norwegian polar explorer
and the world's first international refugee official.
Previous recipients include Eleanor Roosevelt, King Juan
Carlos I of Spain, Queen Juliana of the Netherlands, Médecins
sans Frontières and the late Tanzanian President
Mwalimu Julius Nyerere. Last year, the award went to the
Memorial Human Rights Centre, a Russian non-governmental
organisation which has helped tens of thousands of refugees
and internally displaced people in the Russian Federation.
Source:
UNHCR
