Survivors Fund (SURF) Newsletter - June 2021
News from Survivors Fund (SURF)
As we enter the third month of Kwibuka 27, the commemoration period which marks the 27th Anniversary of the Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, Survivors Fund (SURF) continues to extend support to vulnerable survivors in need at this difficult time, such as those in Kibuye in the Western Province, pictured above, who received goats through out livestock programme made possible by the Good Gifts Catalogue.
In this newsletter we feature a case study of Julienne, one of the participants in our Empowering Vulnerable Genocide Widows in Western Rwanda to Alleviate Extreme Poverty (EVWEP) project, which as we noted in last month's newsletter funding for which from the UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) is ending prematurely in July due to the closure of the UK Aid Direct Community Partnership programme.
However, through the many individual donations, as well as unrestricted funding from trusts and foundations, which we have received in recent years we have been able to build up a reserve exactly for such an eventuality. And as a result we are in a fortunate position to extend the project through to its original conclusion date in March 2022 - to help more widows such as Julienne.
Further to the news last month of our new grant from Clifford Chance for a Counselling Extension Response Project (CERP II), we feature here an excerpt from an article from Professor Donald E. Miller on why genocide survivors can offer a way to heal from the trauma of the pandemic year. Professor Miller has been a long-term supporter of the work of SURF, and recently published Becoming Human Again, an oral history of the Rwanda Genocide against the Tutsi, featuring interviews with with survivors from SURF’s partners, including AVEGA Agahozo and Solace Ministries.
Alongside our own mental health programmes, there are a raft of other innovative interventions, one of which we flag up here, which is Enhanced Resilience Training on which Master Dean Siminoff, the president of the Canadian Charity Martial Arts for Justice, has been working with AVEGA Agahozo. We republished a fascinating article on that work on our website here.
Such work continues to be important at this time, and our thoughts continue to be with the survivors over this difficult commemoration period, and we wish them continuing strength.
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Julienne
A short profile of Julienne, one of the participants in our Empowering Vulnerable Genocide Widows in Western Rwanda to Alleviate Extreme Poverty (EVWEP) project
Julienne is a genocide widow living in Kagano Sector of Nyamasheke District of Western Rwanda and is a member of SURF partner, AVEGA Agahozo. Before joining the project, her daily living activity was subsistence farming which she did to earn an income to help her family, for which she had received no training previously.
Julienne joined EVWEP and attended the livelihoods training program with others living local to her for three months. After attending the training, she then started taking part in group savings. She then took a loan of RWF 200,000 (£144) from SURF's microfinance partner, Urwego Bank, to start her own business selling different items in the market.
Before taking a loan, she used to generate an income of Rwf 5 - 10,000 (£3.60 - £7.20) per month from farming. However, things have radically improved as a result of her setting up her market business, and now her monthly profit is between Rwf 30 - 50,000 (£22 - £36) which is enabling her to independently support her entire household.
“Today I am very happy for what I have achieved through this project. I lost my children and husband during the genocide against Tutsi in Rwanda. I lived a miserable life with trauma and its symptoms, but a AVEGA counsellor visited me many times and helped me to join the business training after which I took a loan and started my business. I am able now earn up to RWF 50,000 (£36) per month. I finished repaying back the loan and I am ready to apply for a second round of funding to scale up my business in the market. Thank you so much for playing an important role in rebuilding my life.”
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Trauma and the Pandemic
The acute trauma of the Rwandan genocide is quite different from the deaths that occur in a pandemic. What happened in 1994 was a deliberate, hate-filled attempt, orchestrated by a small elite, to eliminate the Tutsi population. But there are parallels, I argue, in terms of the trauma experienced by pandemic survivors, and perhaps even in their healing process.
In my work on the Rwanda genocide, I draw on the research of Judith Herman, who wrote a seminal book called “Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence – From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror.” She believes there are three elements involved in the healing process: Survivors need to reach a place of safety, reconstruct the trauma narrative and restore the connection between individual and community.
These three steps have relevance to healing from the trauma of a pandemic:
First, one needs to feel safe. This feeling of safety is occurring for many in the U.S. as an increasing number of pandemic survivors become vaccinated.
Secondly, individuals needs to reconstruct their own trauma story and integrate it into their larger life narrative. This accounts for the need of people to talk about the pandemic and their experience of it.
Thirdly, the connection between individual and community must be restored, so that the individual can once again experience trusting relationships with others. This connection was especially important in the divide between Tutsi and Hutu neighbors after the genocide and explains the role of Solace Ministries in creating a social structure in which survivors could once again experience their own humanity. Similarly, pandemic survivors are learning to hug again as they come out of their self-imposed quarantines.
These three elements, in my view, will be relevant as survivors of COVID-19 attempt to deal with their residual fears and anxieties, as well as deeper trauma. The very deprivation of community, the isolation from extended family and friends, and memories of lost loved ones provide prisms for thinking deeply about what’s really important. As the pandemic winds down and people venture outside, the opportunity exists to value life in new ways.
An extract from Why genocide survivors can offer a way to heal from the trauma of the pandemic year by Donald E. Miller, originally published in The Conversation
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Thank You
Our work would not be possible without your support. If you would like to give a donation to support our COVID-19 response, which we will keep open as long as our beneficiaries are impacted by the virus in Rwanda, you can just click on the button below, which will direct you to our donation page - through which there are several ways to give, including PayPal, Virgin Money Giving and directly on the page (via stripe).
We hope you are keeping well. And we wish you well over the commemoration period.
Take care, keep well and stay safe.
Samuel Munderere
Chief Executive, Survivors Fund (SURF)
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