Building peace through forgiveness

Building peace requires time and strength. Now more than ever, young Burundian women and men, Tutsi, Hutu and Twa, need support to become agents of positive change for future generations.

“My life has been so hard. I live in a constant state of fear. Since the beginning of the previous war in 1993, me and my family had to move from one house to another. We just want peace.”

This is the testimony of Papille Harineza, a 23-year-old women who despite her young age, knows first-hand the scourge of violence and upheaval. When she was just a baby, Burundi went through an ethnically motivated armed conflict which left more than 300,000 dead. The conflict forced her, her family and thousands of people to seek shelter in displacement camps or to flee to neighboring countries.