A team of ten young people are back on home soil this week after spending their summer holidays in Rwanda helping to rebuild communities affected by the genocide in 1994. Their visit comes almost 10 years on from the genocide that killed an estimated 1 million people in just 100 days, and as the nation goes to the polls for the first Presidential elections since the genocide (Monday 25 August).
During the last six weeks they have been helping to build new homes for widows and orphans from the genocide, as part of a Transform team, run by Christian relief and development agency Tearfund. They worked alongside a group of Rwandans, both Hutu and Tutsi, in a project aimed at bringing reconciliation to once divided communities, supported by a local Tearfund partner.
During their time in southern Rwanda the team helped to build a new house for 48-year-old mother of three, Florida Mukamuseruka, who lost her husband during the genocide. For the last nine years Florida and her three children have been living in her parents old home, a dilapidated one-room hut built over forty years ago.
“We saw the house that Florida had been living in. The roof had caved in and in the rainy season the water just flooded in. We were able to see what a need she has her new house and what a difference we were making. It was a privilege to be able to help her,” says Heidi Self, 19-year-old Nursing Care Assistant from Bristol.
“The reaction on Florida’s face when she saw us shifting mud around, getting our hands dirty, I think she was surprised. And she was surprised at how quickly it came together once we got stuck in. She kept standing inside the house with her friends looking around. It looked as if it was her house, she was really happy,” says John Palmer Felgate, 24-year-old Industrial Design Engineer from Surbiton.
The team also witnessed first hand the devastating result of Rwanda’s violent past by visiting one of the country’s genocide memorials. More than 50,000 men, women and children, including Florida’s husband, were killed at Murambi Technical College in southern Rwanda, where they had fled to escape the violence.
“I walked into one of the classrooms, peered around the door and saw lots of bodies laid out on tables. They had started to decay but had been preserved. You could see their facial features, their expressions; some still had hair and were wearing jewellery. I just can’t imagine what these people went through,” says Abby McQuillan, 19-year-old student at Leeds College of Art.
“Walking round the site I stopped and looked down and as I saw my feet I thought nine years ago during the genocide ‘who was walking here, what was going on around this site?’ There must have been so much anguish, so much pain. You just can’t imagine the people running and screaming. It’s just impossible to imagine,” said Dan Nichols, 24-year-old PhD Student at Brunel University.
Despite the devastating history the team witnessed signs of hope for the country’s future. “I met a boy called Bosco, a fantastic character, so full of life. His parents were killed in the genocide. Bosco and his younger brother fled to Uganda with another family to escape the killing. Bosco said that because of the way other people had looked after him during the war he really wanted to give his life to helping other people now. “
Hannah Matthews, 19, from Hampshire remains positive about the country’s future. “Going to the genocide site and seeing the country as it is now has made me see how far the country has come since the genocide, how much forgiveness has grown and how thankful the Rwandan people are to be alive.”
“Their faith is so encouraging,” adds 22-year-old Leah Woolcock, a Business Studies student from Bristol. “You can see that they are so alive for God. You go into churches and there are people singing, dancing, so alive - I wish we had it more like that in England sometimes.”
During July, August and September this year a total of 19 Transform teams - more than 200 people - have been working alongside Tearfund’s local development partners in 13 developing countries throughout Africa, Asia, Central and South America.