Close-up: Orphans' struggle for life

Marie Therese Nduwumukama is a Burundian woman whose work with World Vision in Burundi compelled her to start helping vulnerable people. In the following report she recounts how in the midst of the Burundian civil war she witnessed, up close, the sufferings of people as she worked with communities to help victims of HIV and AIDS in the northeast of the country.

“Before I started working for World Vision, I did not know that there were people, especially kids, who could be in worse conditions than those I witnessed. I came to know of this when I was working in Muyinga, in the northeast of Burundi, while implementing a project on health and AIDS. With that project, World Vision helped people who were living with HIV or affected by AIDS.

“One day, while sitting in my office, it was in August 2004, early in the morning, a guard came in my office to tell me that there was a young boy at the gate who wanted to talk to me. It was during the crisis. I asked the guard if he knew that boy or if ever he had seen him before. He answered that it was his first time to see him.
“I pondered for a moment and asked the guard not to send him alone but to accompany him and to stay until I knew who he was and what he was looking for. Deep in my heart, I feared for my safety. People were being killed in that way throughout the country.  When I saw him he was a gentle, young little boy with an innocent look. Valentin was his name and started to talk.

“He was an orphan, a motherless boy. His mother died when a car hit a bicycle that was carrying his parents. His father who was also riding became disabled. Because of his disability, he could no longer work to fend for his family. Valentin was a primary school boy at that time.

“In the same year, he succeeded in the national test that allows primary pupils to go to secondary school and was sent to a boarding school far from his home in Kirundo, a neighbouring province. He was not able to get neither transportation nor school fees nor any other required fee to be admitted to the boarding school. He decided to redo the year, hoping to be sent to another nearby school.

“Unfortunately when he succeeded again, he was sent to the same school, Mukenke high school. He talked for more than 20 minutes, telling me how life has become very hard after the death of his mum and the disability of the father. To make a long story short, Valentin and his other four siblings had become like motherless and fatherless orphans to the extent that his two sisters abandoned school. He longed to continue his studies.

“As he recounted I figured out how distressed he was. While looking at him it was clear that coming to see me was the only hope he had. Someone in the communities, who knew me because of my visits to affected families by HIV and AIDS, had directed him to me.

“I was shocked and decided to talk it over to my colleagues. Our health and AIDS Project had items which could help that child to go to school; copy books, pens, bucket and a blanket, but what was lacking was money.

“I decided to raise funds for the kid among the staff, everyone contributing as he or she could. One year later, the project was over and he still needed support and I decided to support him myself. Now he is in the final year, ready to go to university and I am proud of it.

“This work with World Vision gave me a clear understanding of the hardship underwent by community members, especially orphan kids, whereby younger children decided to sacrifice themselves in taking care of their younger siblings. 
“This is just one of the examples, but once in the field you witness situations which you cannot understand.

“Whenever I come across such situations I am compelled to help; working with communities in need has created in me a feeling of compassion.”